Post by: bustin98 on June 26, 2007, 07:33:48 PM
Newsweek's exclusive announcement.
Looking forward to some cool content.
Post by: Kairon on June 26, 2007, 07:36:30 PM
Post by: bustin98 on June 26, 2007, 07:57:47 PM
Post by: Kairon on June 26, 2007, 08:07:46 PM
Sounds to me like Nintendo is still having some supply issues with their dev kits if they need that much time to get content up.
Also, does this suggest an HD attachment? Or will we finally be able to use larger size SD cards beyond the 2.0 GB limit? 4.0 GB Sd Cards? 8.0 GB SD Cards? That'd be sweet, and less hastle. HD = un-ergonomic.
Post by: bustin98 on June 26, 2007, 08:38:36 PM
Post by: Kairon on June 26, 2007, 08:42:52 PM
Post by: ShyGuy on June 26, 2007, 08:46:10 PM
Post by: denjet78 on June 26, 2007, 08:51:57 PM
Reaching out to independent developers is a great idea, and one I think is far overdue at Nintendo. It actually sounds like they're going to be actively courting them. Is this the same Nintendo that I grew up with? All around this sounds like a great idea and with how many games are already available on the VC I don't see why everyone wouldn't want to have a piece of that pie.
I see someone's already whining about the "next year" statement. Well, next year is only about 6 months away. That's actually not that long. And remember, they have to get dev kits out and actually get developers on board, which shouldn't be too hard to do at all. I'm assuming that the first few games will be Nintendo's own and then slowly other developers games will start to trickle out. I'm completely expecting to hear about at least one upcoming title from E3. There will probably be quite a few on show at TGS.
Post by: Kairon on June 26, 2007, 08:55:34 PM
Oh, and there probably WILL be a harddrive, though I can't imagine how. Didn't Nintendo get together with a hard drive company a while ago, the HD company made an announcement, and then promptly went back under the radar?
Post by: Shift Key on June 26, 2007, 10:47:06 PM
Quote
Originally posted by: Kairon
Didn't Nintendo get together with a hard drive company a while ago, the HD company made an announcement, and then promptly went back under the radar?
There are rumours going around about the hard drive attachment, but I don't remember anything official. Maybe E3 is where the answers will be found?
And this is great news! Retro games AND indie games! Can't wait for more details.
Post by: Pittbboi on June 26, 2007, 10:54:20 PM
And yeah, this pretty much guarantees that we'll get hard drive support soon. Either that or Nintendo will be hard-headed and decide to stick with SD cards...but if that's the case they need to make them function a lot better with the Wii...
Post by: Adrock on June 26, 2007, 11:21:54 PM
Quote
I can't imagine where a hard drive would be placed on or near a Wii.
Perhaps underneath (or to the left if standing on its side). They could always just include a new stand to accommodate the hard drive. Sure, a hard drive wouldn't be that big, but it'd look weird if the dimensions didn't match.
Or they could release a new Wii model (with the same chipset) that comes with a built-in hard drive or at least a bay to plug one into. Might as well throw DVD playback in too. I already have a Wii and I don't buy VC games so really, a new model wouldn't effect me. I wouldn't buy a hard drive or a new model unless, of course, a game I really like (such as Brawl) supports the hard drive in a way that nearly justifies having one.... or these WiiWare games end up piquing my interests.
Post by: Ceric on June 27, 2007, 02:09:41 AM
On the Harddrive side of things. USB. They have the two ports. Unfortunately though it seems they didn't decide the Wiimote peripheral part to be very versatile so Microphones and the like seem to have to use the USB at the moment. I hope that is addressed. Those are games that it gets really annoying to be tethered. Now I do hope they decide to go with a better filesystem then FAT...
Post by: Spak-Spang on June 27, 2007, 02:39:08 AM
We really aren't a year away from this. More like 1/2 year away seeing as it could launch in January of next year.
Personally, the wait will be long, but I also think it is necessary to put everything into motion. Nintendo is going to have to increase the Wii's storage capabilities SOON. I only have one page left for Virtual Console games, and I sure as hell am not going to delete and copy my games from SD card. (It takes way to freaking long to do this...I mean it literally is crazy how long it takes...it is almost shorter time to just delete a game and redownload it.
So, that means some sort of hard drive or firmware update with SD cards, perhaps both? But in the end, it will be a good thing because it means larger, better games for WiiWare.
So why is the wait till next year. It gives time for the Wii Hard Drive to sell. Depending on when it is released. Early fall? Christmas this year? Perhaps even late summer...or whenever the first SNK game is launched. Whenever it is launched Nintendo will want to have sold quite a few units so that the WiiWare games can take off quicker.
Post by: Caliban on June 27, 2007, 03:42:29 AM
Post by: Spak-Spang on June 27, 2007, 04:32:32 AM
It is really giving a lot of freedom to the developers. But I am sure there are restrictions we don't know about right now. Size is going to be a big limitation, specially if Nintendo doesn't release a hard drive of some sort.
Post by: ShyGuy on June 27, 2007, 04:46:33 AM
Post by: Athrun Zala on June 27, 2007, 05:43:06 AM
Quotelast I heard, the change to SDHC could be done by a firmware upgrade (there are some devices that through an update became capable of reading SDHC cards...)
Originally posted by: Ceric
On the larger SD card thing Nintendo chose an older version of the SD Card reader so I wouldn't hold my breath on current models be able to read over the current limit. (Also a side note. At my Walmart you have been able to get the official 1 gig card for about 20 bucks.)
Quotewhy? FAT is far from perfect, I agree on that, but it's pretty well documented and everything under the sun supports it in some way or another... there would be no point in licensing other filesystem or create their own...
Originally posted by: Ceric
On the Harddrive side of things. USB. They have the two ports. Unfortunately though it seems they didn't decide the Wiimote peripheral part to be very versatile so Microphones and the like seem to have to use the USB at the moment. I hope that is addressed. Those are games that it gets really annoying to be tethered. Now I do hope they decide to go with a better filesystem then FAT...
Quotenot really, the non-SDHC 4GB cards are not standard, and that's why Nintendo claims the Wii supports up to 2GB cards only...
Originally posted by: ShyGuy
Ceric, do you know if the Wii SD card reader is SD1.1 standard compliant? That should read 4gb.
Post by: ThePerm on June 27, 2007, 05:46:54 AM
Post by: Spak-Spang on June 27, 2007, 07:18:02 AM
I am hoping this is another example of the Nintendo Press people not being informed or in the loop about the future plans for Nintendo. We have seen plenty of examples of Nintendo's Press people just being flatout wrong. With Nintendo information.
Post by: Dirk Temporo on June 27, 2007, 07:21:57 AM
Post by: Kairon on June 27, 2007, 07:35:31 AM
Also, will indie developers not need a "publisher" if costs are this low? I.E., could they self-publish, especially since Nintendo won't do any screening of content as long as the game isn't rated AO?
... sounds AWESOME !!!
Post by: Ceric on June 27, 2007, 07:39:17 AM
Post by: Kairon on June 27, 2007, 07:42:06 AM
Post by: Ceric on June 27, 2007, 08:00:34 AM
Quote
Originally posted by: Kairon
Reggie referred to Nintendo acting as the RETAILER, not a publisher at all.
Was that in regard to my comment?
If so, Retailers set actual price. Publisher set Wholesale and Suggested price. Lets say that taking a $5 loss on Super Mario Galaxy will drive more people to the store to buy other things then as a retailer I can do that. At that the publishers no longer care because I already bought it from them.
Adrock: I had a good post about why not FAT but I lost it. Looking at the Comparison on Wikipedia, FAT32 would probably fit the bill ok. I doubt they are going to have files that are larger then 4 GiB, stupid standard board.
Post by: Kairon on June 27, 2007, 08:15:28 AM
Quote
Originally posted by: CericQuote
Originally posted by: Kairon
Reggie referred to Nintendo acting as the RETAILER, not a publisher at all.
Was that in regard to my comment?
If so, Retailers set actual price. Publisher set Wholesale and Suggested price. Lets say that taking a $5 loss on Super Mario Galaxy will drive more people to the store to buy other things then as a retailer I can do that. At that the publishers no longer care because I already bought it from them.
Yup! Nintendo sets final pricing, though I'm sure this will be worked out with the developer and publisher (if there even IS a publisher to begin with... hmmm...).
Post by: Smash_Brother on June 27, 2007, 08:55:14 AM
1. Reggie went on record saying that ANYTHING goes: you can use any controller for these games, Wiimote, GC, whatever. This is a big change from their previous idea that new content would have to showcase the innovative nature of the Wiimote in some way. Bravo there!
2. The 6 month delay is intentional. I have no doubt that Nintendo could probably roll this out next week if they wanted, but they aren't. Know why? Because if they did, Capcom, Konami, Namco, etc. would all roll out their games and in 5-6 months when ACTUAL indie games arrive, they'd go in completely under the radar, buried in a pile of existing games from big name publishers who can market them.
In other words, Nintendo said, "No" to big money in favor of helping indie devs along, and that takes balls, big, iron balls, ones which many indie devs will be eternally thankful for.
Post by: Kairon on June 27, 2007, 08:58:03 AM
...but, ack, it's probably real hard to get an SDK.
SO DOING THIS WHEN I GRADUATE! SO DOING THIS!!!
Post by: Smash_Brother on June 27, 2007, 09:15:20 AM
If so, then best of luck to you.
Post by: Kairon on June 27, 2007, 09:38:05 AM
Post by: Spak-Spang on June 27, 2007, 09:42:35 AM
I got a question. We all know that the internal storage on the Wii is limiting...and the two fixes seem to be a firmware update to allow games to be read from the SD Card, or a harddrive (Probably with its own firmware upgrade to allow games to be played off the hard drive.)
My question about the SD card is that with how long it takes to copy games back and forth from SD Cards on the Wii, wouldn't that effect games being played from the SD card slowing them down. Would we also lose cool features like the saving of your spot in old games and coming back to play them later?
I guess what I am getting at is perhaps the Hard Drive is the only way to truly get everything we want...or perhaps we are stuck with what Nintendo is giving us which isn't very much at all...unless they truly are making a hard drive and don't want that E3 surprise spoiled by a single question.
Post by: Smash_Brother on June 27, 2007, 09:42:58 AM
Quote
Originally posted by: Kairon
Not if I keep buying VC games... /cry
D'oh!
And for the record, I'm not being cynical.
At the worst, $4,500 for a startup ain't bad at all.
Post by: NWR_pap64 on June 27, 2007, 09:47:08 AM
Quote
Originally posted by: Kairon
Not if I keep buying VC games... /cry
Fine example of irony here, folks.
Post by: Ceric on June 27, 2007, 09:50:07 AM
I figure there will be a harddrive channel if Hardrives become available. That way if you don't have one then don't have the channel so the Wii doesn't bother checking and slowing things down.
Talking about channels we haven't gotten a new one in a while.
Post by: UltimatePartyBear on June 27, 2007, 10:01:49 AM
Quote
Originally posted by: Spak-Spang
My question about the SD card is that with how long it takes to copy games back and forth from SD Cards on the Wii, wouldn't that effect games being played from the SD card slowing them down. Would we also lose cool features like the saving of your spot in old games and coming back to play them later?
The games are completely loaded into RAM when you play them. If you could download extra levels that had to be read from the SD card, then there'd probably be a delay while that happened, but during actual gameplay there wouldn't be any loading. I can't figure out any reason why the save state feature would have to be removed.
Post by: Kairon on June 27, 2007, 10:04:00 AM
Quote
Originally posted by: Smash_BrotherQuote
Originally posted by: Kairon
Not if I keep buying VC games... /cry
D'oh!
And for the record, I'm not being cynical.
At the worst, $4,500 for a startup ain't bad at all.
Yeah... i was thinking of hitting my parents up for a loan... lol.
But I'm sure there's other stuff we're missing. If you wanted motion sensing for instance, AILive would probably be better than starting from scratch, setting you back another $2K.
Post by: Spak-Spang on June 27, 2007, 10:20:37 AM
Quote
Originally posted by: PartyBearQuote
Originally posted by: Spak-Spang
My question about the SD card is that with how long it takes to copy games back and forth from SD Cards on the Wii, wouldn't that effect games being played from the SD card slowing them down. Would we also lose cool features like the saving of your spot in old games and coming back to play them later?
The games are completely loaded into RAM when you play them. If you could download extra levels that had to be read from the SD card, then there'd probably be a delay while that happened, but during actual gameplay there wouldn't be any loading. I can't figure out any reason why the save state feature would have to be removed.
Thanks for the reply. So basically you would have probably a one minute or so load into memory and start...maybe two minutes with how long it seems to take to load from the SD card. I guess that isn't too bad.
Post by: Kairon on July 08, 2007, 09:28:38 PM
Post by: Kairon on July 09, 2007, 01:40:17 PM
Some choice excerpts from the interview:
Quote
...
Everything started in 2006 with a really innovative game that caught Nintendo’s eye. Nintendo instantly suggested the game to appear on the yet to be announced download service for Wii. Because we realised that we are a very small developer with an idea a little too big for us, we eventually chose to delay this concept a little and instead focus on a game that would need less man power to become reality.
...
After receiving approval from Nintendo, we created a playable demo version of the game concept. Nintendo reviewed it and stated that they would love to see it appear on the upcoming download service. This was in april 2007.
...
Let’s say one thing: We are going to change the paradigm of how game development works [and] in a similar way we are already doing it with the Austrian GameClub-TestTeam.
Post by: Smoke39 on August 17, 2007, 03:15:28 PM
Quote
Initially, the downloadable titles will focus on puzzle and edutainment genres. Eventually, Nintendo will expand to action games and larger productions.
Quote
Pricing for downloadable titles is expected to be below 1,000 yen (approximately $8).
Post by: KDR_11k on August 17, 2007, 06:58:57 PM
Post by: Smoke39 on August 17, 2007, 11:33:21 PM
Post by: UERD on August 18, 2007, 06:01:50 AM
I'm looking forwards to this, though. I wonder what people will cook up.
Post by: Dirk Temporo on November 12, 2007, 07:38:27 PM
http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3164283
Post by: Flames_of_chaos on November 13, 2007, 01:30:06 PM
- Most projects are costing $100,000 or less
- devs can take their ideas right to Nintendo, or simply go the traditional route
- very unique games in the works
- Nintendo to third party games ratio: 35 - 65,
- size limit: 40MB
- devs will be paid quickly if they keep file sizes down
- Matt Casamassina knows ten games currently in development
- prices set by devs
- devs only allowed one release per month in order to keep quality high
Post by: Kairon on November 13, 2007, 01:53:30 PM
Quote
Originally posted by: Lord_die_seis
IGN leaked some info about Wii Ware:
- Most projects are costing $100,000 or less
- devs can take their ideas right to Nintendo, or simply go the traditional route
- very unique games in the works
- Nintendo to third party games ratio: 35 - 65,
- size limit: 40MB
- devs will be paid quickly if they keep file sizes down
- Matt Casamassina knows ten games currently in development
- prices set by devs
- devs only allowed one release per month in order to keep quality high
...Amazing. I WANT this.
Post by: Stogi on November 13, 2007, 02:24:03 PM
OOT and MM were both roughly 25 megs.........but.........you know........
Post by: Dirk Temporo on November 13, 2007, 02:39:21 PM
Quote
Originally posted by: KashogiStogi
40 MB?! Well that be enough?
OOT and MM were both roughly 25 megs.........but.........you know........
Solution: Episodic content if they want to make long epics.
Post by: Flames_of_chaos on November 13, 2007, 03:15:49 PM
Quote
Originally posted by: KashogiStogi
40 MB?! Well that be enough?
OOT and MM were both roughly 25 megs.........but.........you know........
Developers on XBLA did a lot of good things when Microsoft had the 50MB limit.
