Crowbar Man

Yeah, if you noticed I'm not shedding it in a positive light. Again, they already had a series (Wario) where you collected coins (and treasures) with a total tally, but even that series was focused more on platforming than OH BOY COINS TURN EVERYTHING INTO COINS. So not sure why they stuck that crap and made such a big deal about it in NSMB2. But that is what they did. And thats all NSMB2 is about basically. Mario isn't a greedy guy so why he gives a flip about coins in NSMB2 is beyond me I'm just saying its a different (and IMO not good) focus. NSMBU is more of the same (from NSMBWii). There is no stupid coin collecting motif going on. Theres also the very obvious difference "ones on a console, ones on a handheld" but you know. Also Brush's opinions are a little bit contradictive when he gets onto current gen consoles for "not being enough HD" but can't tell from a pure technical standpoint the difference between 3DS 400x240 resolution and Wii U's 720p. Not that it again really matters in the end, but just saying.

They said specifically over the COMPETITION or their own games? Nintendo doesn't usually acknowledge competitors in any PR. Comparing NSMB2 to the rest of the NSMB series (Specifically U). Not every game ever created. Seriously, have you bothered to look at NSMB2 trailers or advertisements? Thats the focus. Coins everywhere and a giant coin tally. Since its a local multiplayer game, why do you play with jerks? Also this is no different than NSMBWii, so if you didn't like it well why bother? Uh see thats the thing. NSMB is Nintendo's "phone it in" series. Its been kinda crap since the 1st game and the quality didn't improve much with any of the other titles. The whole premise of the series is "Hey this kinda looks like an old Mario game, but doesn't really because the art is terrible CG crap everywhere. We're trying to be retro but not that hard. AWFUL MUSIC TIME." I still play them, and manage to have some fun, but its a terrible terrible subseries. And no, Mario Kart, and Mario Party, sports etc aren't real main Mario games. They are all sub series. The 3D Mario games have been entries into the main Mario series, and all developed with Shigeru Miyamoto as producer. He and his team will be making a real Mario game for the Wii U in time, I'm sure. All this could be said about NSMBWii to NSMBU. But NSMB2 and U have a different focus. Again, 2's focus is on collecting coin nonsense. Thats its whole premise. Any time you see screenshots and footage? COINS! EVERYWHERE! GOLD COIN FLOWER MAKES EVERYTHING COINS! Its like they forgot they already have a series for collecting valuables (Wario) NSMBU is a continuation of NSMBWii. If he said "NSBMU doesn't look any different than NSMBWii" I wouldn't have any argument. NSMBU is NSMBWii in HD with different levels and a 5th screen helper. Its focus is the same: Cooperative play based on crappy NSMB subseries. But 2 and U have completely different purposes. NSMB2 is more a follow up to NSMB1 than NSMBWii. (DS -> 3DS) both on handhelds, both low res, both single player focused experience (both have 2 player but require 2nd cart / handheld and not a focus or heavily advertised)

If there is wide spread reports of the controllers breaking, then you'd have a point. A demo unit in public display is never a good judgement, not sure why you are trying to push that so hard. It is always disappointing to see something break in a short amount of time, but since there aren't any details of WHAT happened to it, take it with a grain of salt. Nintendo does have a good track record, after all. Anything can break if stressed enough

Just two things: I dont think anybody said Nintendo finally having resolutions higher then 480p is "revolutionary" for anything other than Nintendo's games themselves. Its only in Nintendo's world they've been stuck in SD-land. Sony/MS have been in "HD". Even then, its not just a bump in resolution either, the console itself is beefier in every spec than the Wii by a huge margin. This will lead to better games from Nintendo (Hopefully!). NSMBU is a follow up to NSMB Wii, not 2. U and 2 are nothing alike, you'd have to have some pretty poor eyesight / understanding of the games to not notice any difference. NSMB2: on a tiny screen thats 400×240. Max 2 players (only with 2 3DS and 2 copies of the game). Has a gold coin collecting marathon going on unique to itself NSMBU: 720p. 4 normal players + a 5th helper on the GamePad. Traditional NSMB style play. Both of them are in NSMB subseries (not REAL Mario games) so aesthetically they are identical (and not my thing) but that is about it. If you don't like the NSMB subseries: Don't play them. Wait for a real Mario game.

To your average joe? Nope. To the gameplay? Nope. But to pixel counters and/or people who just want to know every little detail and/or give accurate information? Yes. Its the difference between life and death. Just information, no need to get stressed out.

As ocre stated (and I earlier), unless they have changed something, NSMBU renders in native 720p as shown in screenshots and press events and confirmed by Nintendo. 720p is still HD. Just not 1080p. If it has a 1080p option, it'll be upscaled.

ocre: its not "Kotaku", its every gaming website. IGN, GameSpot, Joystiq, etc. Nintendo reps respond to them all the same way: For voice chat you must use a headset that plugs into the GamePad. If there was an option to use BlueTooth, wouldn't you think one of the many websites would of reported that by now, and that Nintendo reps would of mentioned that when questioned? It would be peculiar for it to be left out when asked about it over and over, especially when people are starting to make a big deal about it. Derrit: I didn't say anything differently then DarkeSword. You've called me an idiot in your other post too when you didn't even read the article you posted. NSMB Topic: I myself don't consider the NSMB to be really a part of the main "Mario" series. Its just a spinoff (like Kart, Party, etc), and rather lame and samey at this point. A real "Mario" game will come to the Wii U in the future I'm sure. More on the Voice Chat Conversation: There is already one online game confirmed to be missing voice chat: Sonic All Stars Racing Transformed. 360/PS3 version can, Wii U can't. Doesn't matter what your stance is on voice chat, it is still unfortunately a missing feature. And it wont be the first. This is why its disappointing that Nintendo took this stance. Covered this in the topic earlier: Almost no games on consoles now are even pushing native 1080p. Some AAA games barely make it to native 720p. If a game supports "1080p", 95% of the time its just upscaled 720p or worse, unless its something with very simple graphics. Wii U launch games are native 720p. Theres still room to improve, then you have to take into consideration more powerful shaders, polygon counts, etc etc. We are at a point where the returns are starting to be less important, but we aren't near "maxing" anything out graphically in console land, especially resolution wise. There IS 4K "Ultra HD" (3840 x 2160) TVs coming out in the near future too. See previous conversation we had on this. Depends on your definition of "HD", native 720p is "HD" but not "Full HD"/"True HD" or whatever you want to call native 1080p. Wii U launch games are in native 720p like current consoles can do, but the unit has the ability to output to native 1080p like current gen consoles can do too. I imagine they are playing it safe since devs have to get used to the new hardware + 2nd screen.

Yeah, blame editing instead of the fact you didn't read them in the first place. (as usual)

No? That isn't what I've said at all

Bleck: So, not even sure what your point is being, considering I've already pointed out that information at the start of the current conversation Anorax: Skype Support: That would be pretty cool!

Maybe you should read the article? They aren't BT. The article says you plug them into the GamePad. Every article I've read said that Wii U doesn't support BT headsets (at least, not at this time) and the only way you can voice chat is if you plug a headset into the GamePad. I wouldn't call someone an idiot if you didn't read the article, or have any facts, as usual.

I could be completely blind, but that article says nothing about bluetooth headsets. Care to quote the part that says it? Or did you quote the wrong article? Turn it off? Its not that complicated. Also, not that it matters since I'm an oddball anyways, but I don't play any games with ranked matchmaking, but plenty of coop/team games with my friends. (L4D, TF2, Borderlands, RE5/6, Portal 2, etc) But if for some reason I did decide to, and didn't like the 12 year olds, I'd just turn off the voice chat. Again, I myself am not a big fan of voice chat in general, but lacking the feature is still disappointing, especially for those that do.

Well the "argument" seems to be simply: "I don't like voice chat so I don't think it should be a feature for those that do" Which isn't much of an argument. And I'm not even trying to argue, I'm mostly just stating some information about the Wii U. What are you talking about? Tech has been here. See 360, or even PS3, as example.

I was under the impression it didn't. Is there any confirmation of this? I can't find it anywhere. Specifically most articles say in fact it does not. Uh, I'd like to see you quote where I said anything like that in my posts. As a future Wii U owner, I am simply disappointed that a brand new console is lacking a common feature. 1) I don't play games with 12 year olds generally. Also as mentioned, if you get annoyed you can always turn it off, but lacking the ability to use it at all isn't very appealing. 2) Unfortunately as far as I've read, this is not the case. 3) I can't play Nintendo's games on 360. This also isn't a good advertising point for the Wii U. "Use another console if you want this feature". There is nothing to "Get Over" I'm simply stating the console is missing a feature that modern consoles have adopted, and future consoles should continue using. This isn't unusual for Nintendo though, just disappointing to see. Except when the game doesn't support it at all.

Well, if you want to be technical, people can take turns playing single player modes in the same room too! "Nobody" cares about voice chat? These are kinda odd remarks considering its heavily used across many platforms (360/PS3/PC). It depends on the game, anything that is more action paced and/or team based you can get your messages to your team mates much faster via verbal communication than stopping, trying to type it out, and hope they read it. I dont really socialize with people at all, but using voice chat to play games with friends can be fun. If you are playing with strangers you can always turn it off if you dont like it in most cases. But having more options is better than missing options IMO.

It SHOULD be relevant, as its a common feature in online gaming these days, and it makes sense given you don't want to use a keyboard to communicate with a console generally, since its controller centric. 360's voice chat system is wonderful. You can cross voice chat doing anything, while your friends are doing anything (same game, different game, watching a movie, etc). You can set up a party chat to just chat with your friends and ignore the jerks in the actual game your playing. Its a perfect example of how console voice chat should be handled. PS3 you can only voice chat in the same game/application but it is supported in all games (I think). Wii uh.. Animal crossing? i think. Thats pretty much it unless theres another game I missed. Wii U: "Whatever games support it"... so far. I was under the impression it was going to be similar to how MS does it, with the GamerTag/"Avatar" (which stole the Mii concept) combo, only with more focus on the Mii. Guess we'll find out, Nintendo is being very vague and simply saying it will be "much simpler" and "people will be happier" with the way it works, but Friend Codes still tie in somewhere in the system, somehow. Not online :/ The whole concept of NintendoLand is same room party fun anyways

Well a small bit of more bad news. It doesn't look like Nintendo is going to follow any sort of standards for online voice chat (though no surprise that Nintendo takes bizarre approaches trying to reinvent the wheel than follow anybody) Firstly, in game voice chat is completely optional up to the game devs to implement or not. So no chatting on all games, and "Cross Game Chat" is probably not an option at this point (though not even PS3 does that last i checked). Second of all, you have to use a headset (sold separately) plugged into the headset port of the GamePad, you can't just use the GamePad's built in mic. Odd Third of all, ONLY the GamePad has the headset port as of this time. The Pro controller does not, which is strikingly odd considering its almost identical look to the 360 controller. So if you REALLY want to use the Pro controller AND voice chat, you have to plug your headset into the GamePad and set it next to you. No word on if they plan on offering any wireless headset options in the future. Games confirmed with Voice Chat are: Assassin's Creed 3, Mass Effect 3 and Black Ops 2 I probably wouldn't use the Wii U for "serious" online gaming anyway but if you intend to it certainly looks like Nintendo is planning to make it a hassle :/

Happy Birthday!

Like I said, this wouldn't work :/ No PS3 can read the data off the drive except the PS3 it was originally set up with, any other PS3 will not be able to read it (and yes try to reformat the drive so it can) As mentioned in my post, the only way you'll be able to get your data off is by getting the unit working and using the Data Transfer Utility to transfer the data to another working PS3 unit (free!), or use the PSN+ cloud service (have to sub to PSN+) Also the new model PS3 units are kinda poopy. Spring loaded slide lid, kinda cheaply made. Does come with a game but I wouldn't recommend it over the old slim (same price minus the game). Neither are PS2 backwards compatible, so if your unit is you may want to still look into repairs anyways if that is important to you

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but since the PS3 uses signing and encryption for some of its files, they are tied to your PS3. I believe The only way to get them off and in a usable state is through the PS3 Data Transfer Utility (hooking two working PS3s together). I believe you can redownload your purchased content from PSN, but your saved data is probably lost unless you backed it up to the cloud on PSN+ or you can get the machine operable again Sorry if none of this is good news :/ There could be several things causing your PS3 to not boot (heating, HDD issue, etc) so if the saved data is something your after you might need to have someone familiar with repairing PS3s take a look at it (and a game store is probably not going to help unless its local and they specialize in such things)

The rendering is done on the Wii U itself, not the GamePad, it simply displays an image like a TV. Pushing the hardware itself (weither its doing two viewports or one) too far until it drops frames would be the same as when any other consoles drop frames. I wouldn't think it would effect the wireless communications side specifically

From a personal opinion, NiGHTS is a far far FAR better game Sonic Adventure 2 can be fun at parts, but other parts are .. ugh :/ Its a longer game than NiGHTS, but not sure if you want it to be. Also, they have stupid paid DLC for SA2 HD for the "Battle" extra stuff they added to the GCN version. NiGHTS HD comes with Christmas NiGHTS free! ** ** (since its a port of the PS2 remake, and that had a remake of Christmas NiGHTS. Nothing extra Sega did)

Well, all wireless communication gives off a very small amount of "lag" compared to wired. It just depends on exactly how much to be noticeable to the player (in which case, most wireless controllers input latency is so small its a non issue). But I don't think they are referring to input latency, but rather, the latency that it takes for the video on the GamePad screen to display whats going on (since it is wireless video). Apparently this isn't going to be an issue as shown in the video, its doing a better job displaying the image on the GamePad than the TV itself. This means A) the gamepad video takes priority over the regular video and/or your average HDTV has more latency trying to display the video than the GamePad Since there isn't a technical breakdown of the unit yet, I am going to guess there is some sort of hardware responsible for the wireless video transmission, and not something game software has hard control over at that low of level. I'm also guessing that some of the 1GB reserved for the "system" is going to video ram & operations for the GamePad too. I don't think this will be an issue

A little news. Nothing really that exciting, but looks like things are moving along! 1000 devs and 50 distributors sounds like a start at least. Also big name on board sounds less and less like a scam everyday! We'll see!

Well I am a bit honestly. I spent a large portion of the day trying to make sure my points were clear, easily understood, and factual! That is a lot of hard work Now I'm just being laughed at for all that effort You should feel bad. But it is okay. I'll forgive you if you buy me a Wii U. [topic!]