I worked at the game section of a store and I noticed that after a while

Wind Waker had a 'Best Seller' emblem slapped on the front cover. That's all

fine and dandy, but then I noticed that at the opening days of Mario Party 6

and Paper Mario, these games already had 'Best Sellers' logos on them. This

made me kind of mad since these titles didn't even sell yet. I would assume

maybe they were refering to Japanese sales or sales of previous titles, but

it makes me mad that Nintendo would stoop to such a level in order to sell a

few more games.

Aside from that comment, there's been buzz going around of the possibility

of Sega allowing its Genesis titles to be released for download on the

Revolution. Now I know this would be profitable to both companies, but my

real question is do you think it will happen? I'm well aware of Sega's

profound love of reselling old games, and I'm kind of hoping this pulls

through. I just don't know if Nintendo will do this considering that

they're...well, Nintendo.

-Egore

Those "best seller" labels don't necessarily mean anything. I remember seeing "Best Seller" right on the final box art for Mario Power Tennis at NOA headquarters, two weeks before the game was even released. How can it be a best seller before it's for sale, you ask? NOA mumbled something about sales projections and changed the subject. Well, we're always saying they need to be more aggressive with their marketing...

As for Genesis games on Revolution, that is a really cool idea. For some reason, I think Nintendo would be all for it, but I'm not sure if Sega would be interested. They might want to hold back that library (not to mention the Genesis hardware blueprints) in case they ever go back to releasing systems of their own. But it seems like there's more to gain, for both Sega and Nintendo, than there is to lose. For now, file it under "Probably Too Perfect To Ever Happen".

Hi there,

Have you heard anything about the development of a web browser for the DS?

With the DS going online by the year's end, it just makes sense for the DS

to have some sort of a browser/email application.

Of course, there are many issues with releasing a browser, such as, not

being able to control content etc. Regardless of that though, it would be

very exciting to see a development of this kind and I feel it would give the

DS even more appeal.

Additionally, even if the DS hardware is not primed to allow for practical

browsing of already existing web pages, if such a browser is released, I can

definately see some people creating custom web pages that are designed with

the DS in mind...I've already seen this sort of thing happening in light of

the PSP's browser.

Thanks,

Faraz

I expect that some publishers, maybe including Nintendo, will want to design private websites that only their DS games can load up, and the system should be capable of doing that. But a full browser? It seems out of character for Nintendo, but maybe a third-party could release one.

You stated in your mailbag on August 1st, as a reply from "JG233" that, and I quote, "No, you definitely cannot play DS games online with dial-up. You need to have a wireless internet connection set up in your home, which can only be done with broadband anyway." I was pretty sure I heard Reggie say at one point that you in fact don't need broadband for Nintendo WiFi. So I looked it up.

Go back and watch Nintendo's E3 Press Conference. Zip ahead to about 20 minutes in when Reggie is talking about the DS Online infrastructure. He states very clearly that "Obviously a broadband line is not required." Now, he could have mis-spoken, but given the direction of his speech, I don't think he was.

I'm also somewhat sure that you can have WiFi in your home with a modem. The original Apple Airport Base Station had a modem built into it. The current one also offers it, but it's a built-to-order option.

I'm not out to prove you wrong, I'm just trying to offer a few corrections for all your readers. And like everybody else, I'm definitely digging the frequent mailbag updates! It'll keep me coming back to PGC daily, if not more.

Don't worry, I don't mind being proven wrong. My ego is a lot less important than PGC's readers having the most accurate information possible! But in this case, I do think I'm correct. The quote from Reggie you mention almost certainly refers to the fact that you don't have to plug any kind of ethernet cable into the DS to enable WiFi play...he says "obviously" because the DS simply doesn't have an ethernet port to begin with. It can only be done wirelessly. WiFi generally implies broadband speeds, although technically, WiFi is merely a local wireless network that could be connected to the Internet by any means. That's fine and dandy for web browsing, if you don't mind waiting a while for pages to load, but most online games become virtually unplayable on slow online connections. Some other people also emailed me reports of Nintendo's plans to sell an officially licensed USB wireless router, but those reports are unsubstantiated, to my knowledge. I do expect Nintendo to sell an accessory to help people get online with the DS, but the company has not announced anything yet. The closest thing would be NCL's network of WiFi hotspots being installed throughout public locations (such as electronics stores) throughout Japan. Nintendo has not announced plans to establish similar networks anywhere outside of Japan, and in fact doing so might be completely impractical in large countries such as the U.S.

Hey Jonathan

i don't live in London, but i am sure our friends over there would like to know when mario superstar baseball comes their way. I couldn't wait for mario superstar baseball when it was first announced. i would like to know if you have played it & know how many modes are in it? Also do you know how many blocks it will use to save? Baseball is one of my favorite sports besides tennis .

wallypup

A quick check of Nintendo UK's website shows that not a single baseball game has been released in that country...and it looks like there are no plans to change that trend with Mario Baseball. Fans in Great Britain may want to start planning to import this one. I have played it a few times, and although I'm NOT a baseball fan in general, Mario's version of the sport is loads of fun. There are a few modes, like normal exhibition against the computer, two player matches, baseball-themed mini-games for up to four players, etc. I hope the four-player mode includes Home Run Derby and stays away from Mario Party-type diversions. From what I have seen, the mini-games tend to be designed to teach you to play the main game better, which is a good sign. As for memory card blocks, that kind of thing tends to be decided late in a game's development, but I'm betting the number will be low. There isn't all that much to save in Mario Baseball, since the game doesn't have a franchise mode or user-created players.

The reason Shadow Prime's savefile likely could not be transferred

over to the Memory Card 1019 may very well have to do with the save

files themselves. The Gamecube memory card filesystem contains a bit

that, if set by a game, makes a save file uncopyable.

The first time I noticed this, I was trying to copy an Animal Crossing

save. It makes sense in a way: Animal Crossing is a game built off of

object rarity. If you could make copies of your save file, the

ability to move items between towns via visits would enable a player

to make as many copies of a rare item as he wanted.

In this context, it's obvious why Pokemon Colosseum doesn't allow file

copies: Pokemon is also a game built off of rarity. F-Zero GX

probably doesn't allow copies because some features unlock through

playing your savefile on an arcade machine, thus imposing a monetary

cost on those features, and if files could be copied one player could

make available the arcade tracks for his friends.

The copy protection is probably implemented entirely in the Gamecube's

system file copy interface. If there are any DexDrive-like,

third-party solutions that enable copying memory card files, to PC

hard drives for instance, these restrictions can probably be bypassed.

--

- John H.

That's a very good analysis. Other people wrote in to mention that the copy problem has nothing to do with the Memory Card 1019...you can't copy save files from those games with any size card. And John here has a good explanation of why that's the case. By the way, there are definitely third-party devices that let you back up your memory cards to a computer...if you really need to move those files, you might want to see if such devices could help you get around Nintendo's anti-copying trick.

Okay folks, that's all for now. Oh, I do want to mention that Mike Sklens, your friendly neighborhood preview editor, asked me to pass on this useful website: gWiFi. It's an online map program that helps you find WiFi access points in your town. If you're worried about where to go for online DS action, this site might help you...then again, it might not. It wasn't able to find a single hotspot in my city, even though this is a college town with numerous libraries and coffee shops that I know for a fact offer WiFi access.