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Your Questions Answered

by Karl Castaneda - May 3, 2010, 8:48 am EDT

...and the mailbag makes its stunning, magnificent return!

Hello everyone, and welcome! This is the first iteration of the All-New, All-Awesome Bi-Weekly Monday Morning(ish) Mailbag, in which you write me, and I answer you right here on Nintendo World Report.

So let's not waste time, okay? Let's get right on into it:


Maxi writes in a bunch of questions:

1. Why do you think the vitality sensor wasn't shown at E3? Your ideas for the vitality sensor?

2. Do you think that Motion Plus has had good use in games and what ideas do you have for it?

3. What do you think will be shown at E3 from everyone?

Wow, Maxi! That's a lot to answer, so I'll try to be concise here.

1. Well, Nintendo's gotten into the habit, lately at least, of not showing off a product until it's just about ready for release. So while they might've been far along on the vitality sensor around E3 last year, they probably just didn't have much software to show alongside it. Reggie Fils-Aime has already confirmed that the sensor's going to be shown off at E3 this year, and Nintendo's already said that it's releasing in 2010, so you can be sure more information's going to be made public soon.

As for my ideas, the vitality sensor seems like a no-brainer add-on for a Wii Fit sequel/expansion - it could monitor your heart rate to make sure you're actually getting a work-out and exerting as much energy as you should be. Considering Wii Fit's sales success, I'm betting that this sensor's primarily going to be marketed as something to go along with your balance board. But with Nintendo, you never really know. Maybe they're working on a stealth game where you have to keep your heart rate down to avoid being seen - we won't know for sure until E3 later this year.

2. I think Motion Plus was pretty well implemented in Wii Sports Resort, and while I haven't played it myself, Neal seemed to really enjoy it in Red Steel 2. Personally, I'm waiting to see how it'll be implemented in the new Zelda, which again means we're going to have to wait until E3 later this year.

Also, my game ideas are horrible - you don't want them. I'm a writer for a reason!

3. From everyone? Hoo boy. Well, for the sake of keeping this brief, I'll just talk about Nintendo. Super Mario Galaxy 2 will already have come out at that point, but Metroid: Other M's definitely going to be there, and if all of our speculation is correct, the new Zelda should be present in some form (most signs point to it being playable, but there's no concrete evidence for it). The real show's going to be the 3DS, which Nintendo's been super tight-lipped about lately (see more on that later).

As I said earlier, the Vitality Sensor's also a sure-thing to be shown off - I'm sure they'll have some software to group with it, too. Maybe Wii Fit 2?

Finally, I predict that Reggie will talk about Nintendo's money a whole lot, Iwata will (laugh), and that we'll all be grateful that no one's talking about Wii Music.


ShyGuy sez:

When Nintendo comes out with the Wii2, what, if anything, can they do about more quality third party games on the platform?

Nintendo's biggest flaw when it comes to third parties is likely that they just don't pay enough attention to them. Whether it's sending out development kits at the 11th hour, not providing adequate support when they're learning the architecture, or just not giving a damn about quality control, the Big N's always been more focused on what's going on inside their own studios. And while you can hardly fault them for being pre-occupied with their own internal teams, if Nintendo wants to capture the kind of demographic that Microsoft and Sony cater to, a few things have to change.

For all of their launch issues, one area where you can't dismiss Microsoft is how they spaced out their release schedule in their first year with the Xbox 360. Every console has a drought period, but the 360's didn't seem quite as bad thanks to strategically positioned releases. There certainly wasn’t a torrent of quality software from Day 1, but there did seem to be an “it game” of the month.

I actually had high hopes for the Wii in terms of third party support at launch. Red Steel, though it ended up being a disappointment, looked to be a truly ambitious, hardcore-focused title, and the fact that it sold well only seemed to cement my optimism. Unfortunately, though, the Wii never had its “it games” to keep the pace up into early 2007, and as a result, the third party momentum dropped dead and we ended up with the situation we’re in now.

I think the best move for Nintendo’s next system (if they want to capture that 360/PS3 audience – if they just want to work on keeping and growing their new audience, well, that changes things) would be to launch with No More Heroes 3. It’s a critically-acclaimed series that’s built up a small following on the Wii, and since launch games usually sell extremely well, I think NMH3 would be a really massive hit.

Afterwards, though, Nintendo would have to keep that momentum going, so it’s imperative that they get those Wii2/WiiHD/ThwiiD development kits out right away. The sooner third parties are able to get working, the better the support will be right out of the gate.

Do I actually see this happening? Likely not. Nintendo’s making boatloads of money right now, and I think they’re going to focus on expanding on what they’ve built this hardware generation. And from a business standpoint, I can’t really blame them.


Jet Pilot asks:

[With] the release of the 3DS, do you think Nintendo will be forced to finally establish a system that allows users to transfer DSi Ware from one portable to the next (as Sony does with the PSN games) or do you think Nintendo will just expect gamers to re-buy DSi Ware in order to play it on their 3DS?

E3! E3! E3!

I actually emailed our guy at Nintendo to ask this particular question, but Nintendo is not-so-shockingly not discussing anything mildly related to the 3DS right now. When will they be talking about the 3DS?

E3! E3! E3!

As for my own guess, I’d hope they’d have some sort of solution ready. People have spent, in some cases, hundreds of dollars, and it’d be a tremendous misstep to tell all of those people that they won’t be able to play those games on their new systems.

Nintendo hasn’t made any sort of statement in favor of transferring games over, but I can’t imagine they’d leave everyone high and dry in this scenario.


vudu sez:

What ever happened to the Mega Man GB compilation for GBA? Is there any chance we could see these games re-released in some format in the future?

It’s pretty safe to say that the Mega Man compilation on the GBA is dead in the water, and with the Mega Man games being released one by one over the Virtual Console, I’m not sure if Capcom’s looking at hard-copy distribution for those original titles at the moment.

However.

Capcom just recently announced that Mega Man Zero Collection is being released on the DS on June 8th. So I wouldn’t necessarily rule out a portable collection of the original games coming down the pipe eventually.


And that wraps up the very first edition of the All-New, All-Awesome, All-Sort-Of-On-Time Monday Morning(ish) Mailbag (Patent Pending)! Remember to Feed the Bag and supply me with questions. Also be sure to read the Talkback thread.

See you in two weeks, folks!

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