Author Topic: WiiConnect24 and on-line network details/speculation?? (Read 7534 times)

JoeSmashBro · « **on:** May 09, 2006, 10:55:33 AM »

Their announcement was exciting, but all Nintendo did was talk about how Animal Crossing could use it, and that there will be a web browser. I need details!! Will there be on-line/connect24 stuff on the floor tomorrow?

Will we get more details on the virtual console, the network, etc within the next couple of days? How similar will it be to XBox Live? Will it be as functional? Is it possible that the wiimote will notify you of things while Wii is powered off?

The show was fun, but I would like some more concrete details!!

trip1eX · « **Reply #1 on:** May 09, 2006, 11:02:41 AM »

Speculation? I say you'll be able to 'ring' friends when you want to challenge them in a game even if they aren't on their console. You'll hear your remote buzz and you'll go down to your Wii and find out your bud Fred is up for a game. You tell him (maybe with a mic built into the wiimote) to hold on a sec and you'll be ready.

The Omen · « **Reply #2 on:** May 09, 2006, 11:12:36 AM »

It all plays into the Wiispace, the community that hasn't been revealed yet. It will be much like Myspace in that everyone will have a face, and web page and other cool info for you to check out, and you can add friends to play against, and they can add you. Then this mass hysteria sweeps the globe and everyone must be on wiispace

Requiem · « **Reply #3 on:** May 09, 2006, 11:14:26 AM »

That's one of the greatest features I've ever heard. That's very imaginative thinking TripleX.

UncleBob · « **Reply #4 on:** May 09, 2006, 11:19:35 AM »

Quote
Originally posted by: trip1eX
Speculation? I say you'll be able to 'ring' friends when you want to challenge them in a game even if they aren't on their console. You'll hear your remote buzz and you'll go down to your Wii and find out your bud Fred is up for a game. You tell him (maybe with a mic built into the wiimote) to hold on a sec and you'll be ready.

Neat idea, but that would also mean your controller would have to be on all the time... which implies lots of charging.

AnyoneEB · « **Reply #5 on:** May 09, 2006, 11:26:45 AM »

I expect that Nintendo will use this feature well, but I see two potiential problems with it:

1. Security. Obviously, if the Wii is pulling content, what is stopping someone from tricking it into downloading a virus that deletes all of your save games? Nintendo will be signing everything, I am sure, but I hope they future-proof/over-engineer it because encryption/crypographic signing that is good now is often worthless ten years from now. (I am assuming that it will be pulling/acting as a client because otherwise NATs would cause problems. I guess it will just keep a socket open to Nintendo's servers... which would require a lot of server CPU cycles and bandwidth from Nintendo and could give them a lot of information (just how many Wiis are connected would be big marketing data).)

2. Patches. Put simply allowing patches means allowing unfinished games. I see this as encouraging patches. I remember some people complaining about games on XBox being released buggy and getting patches later because it has the hard drive. Although, I guess with half a gigabyte for everything the system has to store, the extra info can't be huge. Once again, I do not expect problems in first party games from this, but third parties do worry me.

On the positive side, hosting personal content via ones personal Wii would be nice for Nintendo.

Also, two words: Bit. Torrent.
Nintendo is not stupid. They will have a huge Bit Torrent swarm for anything they want to pass along to every Wii.

jasonditz · « **Reply #6 on:** May 09, 2006, 11:31:13 AM »

Quote
Originally posted by: UncleBob
Quote
Originally posted by: trip1eX
Speculation? I say you'll be able to 'ring' friends when you want to challenge them in a game even if they aren't on their console. You'll hear your remote buzz and you'll go down to your Wii and find out your bud Fred is up for a game. You tell him (maybe with a mic built into the wiimote) to hold on a sec and you'll be ready.

Neat idea, but that would also mean your controller would have to be on all the time... which implies lots of charging.

Not necessarily... the controller would only need to be able to be remotely turned on by the system. The power required to keep it checking for an "on" signal is probably trivial compared to the rumble feature or the speaker.

The speaker tells me that this thing has a lot more powerful of a battery built into it than I ever imagined.

jasonditz · « **Reply #7 on:** May 09, 2006, 11:34:35 AM »

AnyoneEB: Look at a game like Sega's College Basketball 2K3 for the Gamecube (an admittedly very rare release). Patchability might encourage some rushed games, but it might also allow companies to fix the buggy games that invariably get released anyhow.

Requiem · « **Reply #8 on:** May 09, 2006, 12:09:57 PM »

"Not necessarily... the controller would only need to be able to be remotely turned on by the system. The power required to keep it checking for an "on" signal is probably trivial compared to the rumble feature or the speaker."

Your right, and with bluetooth built-in it can do exactly that.

UncleBob · « **Reply #9 on:** May 09, 2006, 12:23:49 PM »

hmmm...

trip1eX · « **Reply #10 on:** May 09, 2006, 12:54:15 PM »

Yeah all you need is a sort of sleep mode for the remote just like the Wii will have. A cellphone can be left on for days without charging it and I imagine the remote would use alot less power so it's definitely doable imo. It's a guess of course, but I swear the ingredients for this are all there.

The Omen · « **Reply #11 on:** May 09, 2006, 12:55:46 PM »

Quote
Speculation? I say you'll be able to 'ring' friends when you want to challenge them in a game even if they aren't on their console. You'll hear your remote buzz and you'll go down to your Wii and find out your bud Fred is up for a game. You tell him (maybe with a mic built into the wiimote) to hold on a sec and you'll be ready.

Wasn't this confirmed?

MaryJane · « **Reply #12 on:** May 09, 2006, 01:08:29 PM »

was this the big secret that was supposed to be "mind blowing"?

perhaps it eventually can be like if i never have to pay full price for another madden game because i can just update the rosters, then that's cool. but if all i get is new weapons in a shooter, not so cool.

i mustv'e missed the online network part of things.

jasonditz · « **Reply #13 on:** May 09, 2006, 02:17:01 PM »

Speculation: The Wiis can connect to the internet wirelessly... and they can connect to each other wirelessly (?). In a major city where there's a lot of Wiis, will they perhaps be cross communicating for some reason?

Maybe an online connected Wii will be able to get a DS online as well (the spec sheet mentions Wii-DS connectivity). Maybe all those sleeping Wiis will give a DS user free online access? In a city full of Wiis, a DS would have nearly always-on, free internet access.

jasonditz · « **Reply #14 on:** May 09, 2006, 02:19:15 PM »

Quote
Originally posted by: MaryJane
was this the big secret that was supposed to be "mind blowing"?

perhaps it eventually can be like if i never have to pay full price for another madden game because i can just update the rosters, then that's cool. but if all i get is new weapons in a shooter, not so cool.

That's EA's call... but I doubt they're going to derail their gravy train that readily.

I'm a little confused about the AC example they gave at the press conference, about someone "visiting your town" while the Wii is turned off... will they be storing all that stuff server side, or will people be literally connecting to your Wii while it's in sleep mode...

JoeSmashBro · « **Reply #15 on:** May 09, 2006, 02:22:38 PM »

The big question that I have is simply this: How many of these games that we're seeing, 1st & 3rd party, are going to be multiplayer on-line??? Why wouldn't they mention this? It doesn't take attention away from anything else, just tell us that it is. I'm worried that Wii's on-line multiplayer prescense will be underhwelming.

JoeSmashBro · « **Reply #16 on:** May 09, 2006, 02:25:56 PM »

Quote
I'm a little confused about the AC example they gave at the press conference, about someone "visiting your town" while the Wii is turned off... will they be storing all that stuff server side, or will people be literally connecting to your Wii while it's in sleep mode...

Yeah, for real... Would you have to keep Animal Crossing disc in the Wii for this to happen?? It seems like a lot of ideas with zero implementation so far... I wonder if some of these features will not be included in the first wave of games.

For real, though, why wouldn't they just say, while demoing WiiSports, that "and if you don't have anyone at home to play with, you can play for free online"?

I'm almost sure they would say that if they were planning on-line for any of these games...

MaryJane · « **Reply #17 on:** May 09, 2006, 02:26:24 PM »

maybe wrong place to say this, but i also felt that a lot of the DS games shown were missing wifi mention, hopefully the mention was what was missing, and not the wifi support itself.

as for the Wii games, not enough information about them was given period! that conference needed to be an hour longer.

denjet78 · « **Reply #18 on:** May 09, 2006, 02:36:30 PM »

Quote
Originally posted by: jasonditz
I'm a little confused about the AC example they gave at the press conference, about someone "visiting your town" while the Wii is turned off... will they be storing all that stuff server side, or will people be literally connecting to your Wii while it's in sleep mode...

Most likely what's going to happen is that if your AC save file is anywhere in the system, either in the internal memory or on a flash card that's plugged in, that other online users will be able to get to that data while the system is in "sleep mode". Meaning, you won't have to leave the disk in the system.

At least that's what I'm getting from it... or is that more like hoping for it?

It could be a really interesting feature if a number of games take advantage of it. Games that change and update while you're not even playing them, and that other players are the ones making the changes!

JoeSmashBro · « **Reply #19 on:** May 09, 2006, 02:40:34 PM »

Quote
Most likely what's going to happen is that if your AC save file is anywhere in the system, either in the internal memory or on a flash card that's plugged in, that other online users will be able to get to that data while the system is in "sleep mode". Meaning, you won't have to leave the disk in the system.

Ok, I guess that makes sense. And is cool. But I'm skeptical about how much any of this on-line stuff actually going to be implemented.

denjet78 · « **Reply #20 on:** May 09, 2006, 02:43:54 PM »

Quote
Originally posted by: JoeSmashBro
Ok, I guess that makes sense. And is cool. But I'm skeptical about how much any of this on-line stuff actually going to be implemented.

Yeah, Nintendo hasn't really said anything about online for Wii beyond a few small mentions here and there. But, they do keep talking about myspace, which even Sony used as an example when they trotted out their online strategy.

I really hope it's not just a replica of what everyone else is doing, but then again, really what else is there that can be done?

Jensen · « **Reply #21 on:** May 09, 2006, 04:20:35 PM »

Quote
Originally posted by: JoeSmashBro
[Yeah, for real... Would you have to keep Animal Crossing disc in the Wii for this to happen??

Discs generally don't store any save data.

jasonditz · « **Reply #22 on:** May 09, 2006, 05:37:53 PM »

Quote
Originally posted by: Jensen
Quote
Originally posted by: JoeSmashBro
[Yeah, for real... Would you have to keep Animal Crossing disc in the Wii for this to happen??

Discs generally don't store any save data.

And flash ram generally doesn't store programs. They made it sound like Animal Crossing would be "running" even when the system is off. Is it just a question of user B downloading a copy of user A's save file (and who serves the file, user A or Nintendo?), or if I pop in Animal Crossing while someone is visiting my town will they be there?

norebonomis · « **Reply #23 on:** May 09, 2006, 06:34:01 PM »

i love DS. i love WII. i love Nintendo period..

but we know they are gonna screw up the online side...
i mean look what happend on the DS.... FRIEND CODES? oh no!

News:

Author Topic: WiiConnect24 and on-line network details/speculation?? (Read 7534 times)