Which handheld games should jump to the Wii? What about console games that should jump to the DS? We investigate the possibilities.
Golden Sun – Game Boy Advance
This is one that fans of the GBA RPG series have wanted for a long time. Even if the original Golden Sun was a Game Boy Advance launch title, it's still one of the best-looking ever made for the portable. The sequel was more of the same. Since the release of the games, a console version has been a hot topic.
So what would we see in a Golden Sun console game? If Camelot was to make it as beautiful as the handheld games, we'd all be in for a visual treat. “Eye candy" may be an accurate description of what we could expect to see in a Golden Sun Wii game. It would sound a lot better too, because the series had some pretty memorable music. (Pan flutes in surround sound? Yes, please!) Since the game's GBA setup was simple, a Wii edition wouldn't need fancy waggle or pointer control. Holding the Wii remote on its side a la Super Paper Mario would be all we need to play the game.
The issues found in the series could also be addressed. The endless dialog could be fixed by advancing the story in other ways besides conversation. 3D cut scenes and in-game cues could cut quite a bit of the script out of the game, if handled correctly. And that annoyance when you skip a turn when your target disappears? That can (finally) be remedied.
But will a Golden Sun console game ever happen? Camelot is currently busy developing a golf MMO for another publisher, so any direct involvement with a new Golden Sun console (or handheld) game would need to wait. However, in a 2003 interview with Nintendo World Report, Camelot's top men, the Takahashi Bros. (Hiroyuki and Shugo) said that the first two games were “prologues to the real event yet to come," and that they'd like to bring it “for a Nintendo console, whether it’s GameCube or something else."
Looks like Camelot wants the series to make the jump as much as we do. - Steven Rodriguez
Game Boy Camera – Game Boy
When it came out in 1998, it was a novelty. Using your Game Boy as a simple digital camera was a hoot, but since it was a self-contained product it really didn't amount to anything. That changed when Nintendo announced that the camera would work with the N64 via the Transfer Pak accessory. The notion of putting your face on a character in Perfect Dark got a lot of people excited, but the family-friendly Nintendo eventually scrapped the feature, fearing backlash from society. The worst part about the news was that the process was already confirmed to have worked perfectly.
Fast-forward to today. The PS2, PS3 and Xbox 360 have official USB cameras and games that take advantage of them. EyeToy Play for the PS2 was Sony's first crack at incorporating gameplay with a live video feed, and now Eye of Judgment on the PS3 is taking it to another level. Microsoft offers a free Live Arcade game, Totemball, to those who purchase an Xbox 360 camera. Nintendo's competitors are starting to push cameras as a part of their game systems. So why not Nintendo, the one who started the movement?
The stamp and paint tools found in the Wii Photo Channel (left) are essentially the same as those found in the Game Boy Camera (right). The only thing that's missing on the Wii is the ability to take your own photos, and a USB camera would make that possible.
The Game Boy Camera legacy would continue well on the Wii. The ability to take pictures of you and your friends any time you want doesn't sound like it would be an interesting proposal, but with Wii Photo Channel it would be easy to goof around with your snapshots and send them off to friends on your friend list. Firmware updates or Wii Ware downloads could make it possible to put your photo-face into simple games, just like how it worked on the Game Boy Camera.
The possibilities for a camera during gameplay are obvious. Face mapping and camera technology has improved quite a bit from the days of the Game Boy and the Nintendo 64. Though putting your face into a first-person shooter may still be taboo for Nintendo, the practice seems to be catching on in sports games. Can you picture yourself QBing the Patriots or Colts in Madden 2010? How about batting cleanup for the Yankees? It might be possible with a Wii Camera. Advanced features like online video chat will probably never happen due to Nintendo's online safety policies. However, there are plenty of other offline options that Nintendo could cook up to make a Wii Camera worth the money. It could even name the device something clever, like the See Mii Camera.
Okay Nintendo, you've got the concepts and a cute name. Now it's all up to you to deliver the goods. Snap to it! - Steven Rodriguez
Those were the games we thought would do well to make the jump to consoles. Now let's take a look at a handful of titles that may do well to jump the other way, from consoles to handhelds.
