Perfect Dark was published by Rare and distributed by Nintendo. Nintendo

owns no rights to it. That should clear it up for you.

-Marc

Marc also included a scan of the Perfect Dark box, which clearly proves his point. So if Nintendo owns no publishing rights to PD, it will be up to Rare (and thus Microsoft) to decide whether PD can ever be downloaded onto Revolution.

Yes, Battletoads was hard.

Milon's Secret Castle was sorta hard, but I don't remember it standing

out except for that hidden shop thing (which I hated).

But there are other really hard games than these:

- The original Castlevania is probably about two-thirds as difficult

as Battletoads. After the first cycle, it's probably even difficulty

with it.

- Solomon's Key is probably harder than Battletoads by a significant

margin. Not only are some of the puzzles among the hardest seen in a

puzzle game, but to get the best ending the player must hunt up some

incredibly obscure secret items, and do a few things that make the

Spring Shoe shop in Milon seem reasonable.

- Zanac is a stiff challenge, especially if you try to beat it without

continuing. It even gives recent shooters a run for their respective

monies.

- Cobra Triangle was obviously Rare's revenge over all those gamers

who thought R.C. Pro Am was too easy.

- And then, of course, there's Athena. Oy!

--

- John H.

I can vouch for Castlevania and Cobra Triangle being very, very difficult. The original Contra is also a real nasty one if you don't use the Konami Code. Anyway, here's a good list for you masochistic gamers!

Wasabi PGC?

I've been a reader of your site for quite some time

now, and I'm really impressed with it. Aside from

Nintendo's page, this is the only other Nintendo

centric site I visit for my Nintendo related news.

Now, down to business. I'm sure you all are familiar

with the term "planned obsolescence". Well, lately my

cube has been exhibiting some technical difficulties

that really hinder gameplay. At times, the game won't

immediately boot up after powering up the system, and

more often than not a game would actually freeze. The

latter inconvenience is especially pronounced when I

play RE4 and SSBM. I've also noticed that there is

actually a loading lag during gameplay (i.e. going

from the pause menu to the main game in RE4). This

happened to my friend's Cube a couple of years back,

but he got it promptly repaired. Besides, compared to

all the hardware woes Sony and Microsoft experienced

during their systems' first few months, I'm grateful

to Nintendo that they built something that is sturdy

and reliable and actually LASTS its intended cycle.

My questions are as follows:

-Has anyone else experienced this problem with his or

her Cube?

-Would it be more prudent to have it repaired or to

just simply replace it?

-Has the DS replaced the Game Boy product line, or are

there more Game Boy designs in the works?

-If the answer to the previous question turns out to

be a "yes", then is there a possibility that Nintendo

could streamline the DS design to make it less, well,

ugly and more portable friendly?

P.S. If my Cube does die, I can take pride in the fact

that it had a great run. I just hope it holds out for

Twilight Princess.

Sincerely, Zer0

Age-related problems occur with virtually all laser-based machines. You're not the first person to have problems with an old GameCube, no. Whether it's worth having it repaired depends on what you want and how you value the equipment. An official service provider is probably going to charge at least $50 for any major repair (including laser/drive malfunction), and a brand new GameCube is only $99, less if you buy it with a bundled game such as SSBM, though you probably don't need another copy of that game. I have no idea whether a repaired drive can compare to a brand new one, or whether the difference in longevity is worth the extra money that you would spend on a new system.

The DS has not completely replaced the Game Boy product line, as the GB Micro proves. I do fully expect Nintendo to eventually release a full-fledged successor to the GBA hardware that will probably be quite a bit more powerful than the DS. And I also expect that Nintendo will eventually release a new version of Nintendo DS that is smaller and sleeker.

I was having the same problem as you and the gentleman with the survey not sending anything even though the green bar was completely filled. I also have MAC address filtering turned on as well as 64-bit WEP (my SSID is still broadcasted because one of my Wi Fi adapters gets real iffy with it off).

Anyway, I ran the survey many times, it just would not work. I even restarted my PC to see if that did anything, which it didn't. I too began to wonder if it was my security settings, or maybe my Firewall, but I didn't change any settings and just told myself I would try it later. Well I got back to my computer at around 2 AM and took the survey. It worked perfectly. I figured that the times I tried running it earlier were all during the middle of the day when everyone else was trying to send their results in as well, thus overloading the servers.

I hoped this helped. - Jeff

High traffic is certainly a possible cause of the test not working. Hopefully that's the main issue.

Hey PGC, whats up.

I was wondering if the nintendo wireless access dongle will be

macintosh compatable, and if you can even go online wtih the

revolution through a mac?

Thanks,

Tom.

There is absolutely no official information on the Nintendo USB wireless accessory, except that it is planned for release. I expect that we'll learn more about this product whenever Nintendo decided to fill us in on the many other unknown details of the Nintendo WiFi Connection service.

To the guy who wanted to play his Gamecube on his

laptop, I'm afraid you my be out of luck. I have a

video encoder card on my desktop, and it has a few

second delay, even when set on live TV, so playing

games would be pretty difficult.

Several people have written in with similar stories. I have an ATI All-in-Wonder graphics card for my desktop, and I have played GameCube games through it on my computer monitor with no noticeable lag. It may be related to the speed of your computer and of your particular graphics card.

Hey PGC.

I was just wondering how much return the big game companies get from selling

a single, say, $100 AUD console game? And in turn how does the money get

distributed to all the concerning parties (so if the game goes really well

does everyone get rich or just the publishers/ who is out of pocket if it

goes bad??)

Awesome job on the site

Jared Griffiths

Your question is somewhat complicated since you're asking about Australian releases. Not only is there the question of currency exchange, but many games have already been released once or twice before they reach Australia, so the specific cost for the Australian version is much lower than was spent on the game's original development and on the initial localization to English, if that process was necessary.

In general terms, however, the majority of a game's final cost goes to the game's publisher. The rest of the pie is divided among the retail store that sold the game, licensee royalties to the console format's creator (Nintendo), and the disc/packaging manufacturer (Nintendo). First-party games have no royalties, obviously, so the profit margin is larger for Nintendo's own games than for third-party titles.

Ok, Mario Kart Double Dash is easily my favorite game; im completely unstoppable in it. I've won several hundred dollars in my dorm from people thinking they could beat me, however there's one thing I still argue with my friend about. When you use the Golden Mushroom, do you get sent back a little bit, then a giant burst forward? Making it pointless to hit the item button as much as you can really quickly? Or is it only a burst forward? We can't quite figure it out. Thanks a lot.

From the sound of it, you're more qualified to answer such a picky gameplay question than I am. But maybe one of your fellow mailbag readers will know?

Dear Planet gamecube,

Love your site, I visit it every day I can. Anyway, while exploring unofficial Nintendo sites I found a link to a list of "Upcoming Nintendo revolution games." I just want to know what's your take on this and what are the odds that any of these titles may be real.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Nintendo_Revolution_games

Sincerely,

"Guy who visits your site whenever he can"

Well, any of those titles could be real. But the only ones definitely for real are Metroid, Mario, and Zelda. Everything else is just speculation at this point. Keep in mind that Wikipedia is written entirely by fans who may submit anything they want. There are editors who try to make sure all entries are accurate, but for such vague territory as speculative Revolution titles, it's difficult for those editors to say what is real and what is not. In other words: don't believe everything you read on Wikipedia. Hell, don't believe everything you read on PGC. Even with our best intentions, we are wrong sometimes. If the facts are really important to you, spend the time to double-check with independent sources.

i'm glad to see you all have had enough hits on your site to seriously slack....

ohwell it was good while it lasted guys!

I had a weird weekend and have just felt a general laziness the past few days. I'm trying to make up for that now... Sorry, but it really is a lot of work to churn out these extremely large mailbag updates on top of everything else I do at PGC! I love doing it, but some days I just don't have the energy once everything else is finished. I am trying to be as consistent as possible, though!

Could you include whether or not you can use the c-stick to strafe in your review of Geist. So far I have not heard anything about this and it really does make the difference between buying the game or not because I just can't get used to strafing with the left stick. Thanks.

Mike Sklens checked on this feature and confirmed that you can switch the functions of the two joysticks. So you can move with the left stick and aim with the right stick, or vice-versa.

On average it seems video game systems last around five years before they are replaced by a better model. Considering the new band of 'super' consoles with development costs and inevitably retail prices going through the roof, the investment is clearly far more than it's ever been for the average game consumer. With that said, will the big wigs at Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo pump extra life in systems we're pumping more money into?

It just depends on how the games are selling and how much money is being made or lost on the current systems. Sony would like to delay the next generation as long as possible, because they are selling the PS2 for a profit on hardware, and PS2 games are still selling well around the world. Microsoft would like to start the next generation as early as possible because they are still losing a lot of money on the original Xbox system, and sales of most Xbox games (Halo 2 notwithstanding) have slowed down. Nintendo is making a profit on the GameCube hardware and has been almost since launch, but with the GameCube software market nearly dead, I'm sure they want Revolution to be out as soon as possible. One way that all three companies are trying to stretch out the lives of their current systems is to add backwards compatibility in the next consoles.

1. Do you think Mario 128 will be ready at launch for the Revolution? I ask this because from the last few interviews with Miyamoto, he seems to be saying that they're not even past the conceptual phase yet!

2. Do you think Zelda: TP will sell better than Windwaker? I mean, I'll definitely be getting it (already pre-ordered, heh), and I know there were 4 hour lines at E3 and whatnot. But at this stage in the GC's life, I'm worried if many Zelda fans have just lost interest after seeing WW (don't get me wrong, I didn't prefer the art style, but I thought it was a great game).

Thanks.

P.S. I love your site. Keep up the good work!

1. I think the next Mario is farther along than Miyamoto lets on, but that's just a guess. We don't know enough about the game to know whether it will be ready for launch. We don't even really know when launch will happen.

2. Before today's delay announcement, I would have said "yes". Twilight Princess has more immediate appeal to many people who are not hardcore Zelda fans but who would purchase the game because they're familiar with the series. But by the time TP finally comes out, who knows. It depends on how well Nintendo can market a GameCube title that late in the cycle.

Yo Bag,

You mentioned Pennant Chase Baseball as an example of Nintendo making a

step forward towards making consumers and publishers feel that Nintendo

is serious about sports games. But hasn't PCB been delayed

indefinitely? What are the chances that this title will become

vaporware?

The loss of sports games on the 'Cube has been an issue in my home. My

son loves sports games, so we may have to buy a 360 in the fall just to

slake his thirst for the NCAA franchises. Nintendo needs to loosen up

some of their hoarded cash to develop games of their own in all genres

and to help publishers advertise 3rd party games. Once you've gone to

what must be a tremendous cost to develop a console, why wouldn't you

want as many games as possible on the shelves? It just seems like

Nintendo has been shooting itself in the foot over the last few years,

and now by releasing their console last (and underpowered compared to

the competition) -- they've reloaded.

Old School Steve

NPCB has been indefinitely delayed...meaning that it once had a release date but now does not. There are three likely scenarios. 1. The game has simply been canceled, but Nintendo wants to keep the option to revive it later. 2. The game has been dramatically delayed to the start of the next baseball season, and Nintendo wanted to be quiet about such a huge delay. 3. The game is being reworked as a Revolution title or is otherwise undergoing dramatic, sweeping changes.

Dear Mailbag,

I am longtime reader and first time question-asker (if that's even a word).

I was curious...how much memory are DS games using up with the carts currently? I am hearing differing reports of Mario 64 DS using only a fraction of what was availble with a totally different game like Goldeneye: Rogue Agent using up nearly all of the cart (even with its pretty low-quality soundtrack). Thanks!

Sincerley,

JW

There's no reliable way to determine how much of the DS cards is being filled by a particular game except to ask the developers, and even then, you'd have to track down one of a handful of people who would probably know such detailed technical information. More important to the producer and the publisher is how large the media will need to be to hold the game, but I believe that all currently released DS games use the same sized media, 64MB. Nintendo has said that the media is capable of being produced in much larger capacities, up to 1GB.

Dear Bag,

Like so many before me, I'm a long time reader, first time writer. I noticed

that you posted a news article about the Zelda multiplayer mod for Halo PC.

Well, I've been following the mod for a while, and it looks good, but it

can't hold a candle to Metroid Prime Online. This mod

(http://metroid.4lifenet.net/index.php), is fairly new, but looks very

promising. Well, anyways, keep up the

great work, and I'm lovin' the frequent updates.

-Kramer

That's a very cool mod for Halo on PC, although it's still early in development. The video is worth downloading; it shows the player climbing into the Morph Ball in order to control it like a Halo vehicle.

I'm sure you're bag is probably getting flooded with emails about the

Twilight Princess delay, so it doesn't really matter to me if you print my

actual email as long as you answer this question in one of your replies: is

there any chance that this is part of some PR stunt to highten excitement

for the game or that Perrin Kaplan is just wrong? I'm pretty sure I recall

at least one occasion where Kaplan prematurely released information that

turned out to be incorrect (am I making that up?). I'm really hoping this

is another one of those times. And it's also just a little suspicious that

ign cube is the only site to receive such a major story. What are your

thoughts?

Thanks again! Keep up the great work!

Chris

It's definitely not a stunt or an error. Perrin may (or may not) have been wrong about Revolution being "two to three times as powerful" as GameCube, but that remark was made in the middle of an interview as a response to a question she was probably not prepared to answer with technical details. Today's Zelda delay announcement was premeditated and carefully worded, you can be sure of that. The reason it only appeared on IGNcube very early this morning is that NOA sent out the announcement to a very small list of analysts and media instead of issuing a normal press release, which would have been received by all the media at the same time.

dear bag,

I desperately want to see selectable difficulty levels in TP, and I

know a lot of others agree with me. Zelda is an amazing series that

has been constantly hampered by being way, way too easy for a gamer

like myself. Even something as simple as giving enemies more

hitpoints and making hits more damaging to Link (I mean really, a

quarter of a heart? How am I ever supposed to feel pressure with that

kind of damage?) would make a huge difference in my enjoyment. My

question is, how in the world do us hardcore gamers who are still in

love with the Zelda series get heard? Is there anything we could do

that might sway Nintendo and improve our chances of seeing a

difficulty level system in future Zelda games? What about other

first-party titles as well?

-- Brian

I don't see Nintendo putting difficulty levels in Twilight Princess, because they want the game to come across as a seamless experience with as little interface as possible. They also want to tightly control the difficulty for balancing reasons. However, I think the complaints about Wind Waker being so easy have been heard at Nintendo, and that they will make Twilight Princess closer to the difficulty of Ocarina of Time.

Love the daily mailbags... keep up the good work! After hearing the heart-breaking news of Zelda being delayed until after March 31, do you think that The revolution will be pushed back also into the fall to give the game some selling time? If not is there any chance of it becoming a launch title for the revolution, as Daniel said? I'm not sure if I'm right on this, but wouldn’t that be the first time a previous generation game launched on a new generation system without any graphical enhancements? One more thing, it feels like this delay will only hurt the sales of the game, as well as the Gamecube itself because it would be competing with both the PS3 as well as the XBOX 360. Please leave your thoughts. Thanks.

I think Nintendo will want Zelda and the Revolution to be released as close as possible to each other. Their combined publicity could be very helpful. It has happened before, certainly. The Zelda Oracle games for GBC were released simultaneously with the GBA launch, and both games and the new handheld all sold extremely well. I remember many reports of people going into the store in June 2001 to buy the GBA and one or both of the new Zelda games to play on their new system.

Hey PGC,

The more I thought about the Zelda delay, it occurred to me that this decision could have something to do with a possible Revolution delay. If Nintendo feels that Revolution will slip too far behind PS3, they might want to have Twighlight Princess ready to counter the launch of Sony's new system. Of course, it is still likely that the game needs more polish from the development team, but this seems like a viable secondary motive for Nintendo. Anyway does this theory make any sense?

No. Zelda has been delayed to the next fiscal year, which means that Nintendo's earnings forecasts for the current fiscal year are going to be smashed to bits. That's serious business. Revolution is going to be released in the next fiscal year no matter what, and delaying Zelda won't change that.

Why not put Zelda on the Revolution? It's a guarenteed system-seller, and there's no point in putting it on the Gamecube now, unless the Revolution is pushed back 6 months or 9 months. If the Revolution's launch and Zelda's launch are 3 months or less apart, I think Nintendo definatly should release that game as a launch title - if they want the Revolution to sell, that is.

(can I just be anonymous?)

I posted this note in our forums regarding the possibility of moving Zelda onto the Revolution:

"At the end of every generation, there are people who want the old system's final set of games to be moved up to the new system. It's a bad idea, and history has proven that.

Star Fox Adventures - over two years of extra development time, critical thrashing, mediocre sales

Eternal Darkness - over two years of extra development time, pitiful sales

If you want to know how much work is involved in moving a game up to a new system several times more powerful, look at the ordeal of porting Conker to Xbox with nicer graphics. It took Rare about three years. Granted, Rare is slow as hell, but you can still tell that it was no simple matter. I bring up Conker because many people thought it should have been moved from N64 to GameCube. And in the end, it's going to sell about as many copies on Xbox as it did on N64, which is to say, not that many."

I think it's unreasonable to think that such a huge game could be ported to a new system in this kind of time frame. And it may not be wise to do so even if it is technically possible. Twilight Princess will play just fine on Revolution either way, thanks to backwards compatibility, but as a GameCube game, it is also playable for the 18 million owners of that system.

(You can always be anonymous in the mailbag. Just don't include a name at the bottom of your letter.)

I have 2 questions. My first one is how much is it to import a DS game? My second one is what will be the very first online game for the DS that will be realease? Thanks in advance.

- Mark

Lik-Sang sells most Japanese DS games for $50 USD and ships worldwide. Mario Kart is currently set to be the first online DS game and will be released this fall.

Alot of people on message boards are citing how Wind Waker came out in

early summer also, saying that its not a horrible time to release. WW

released in Japan months before it did in the US though, right? In fact,

I think it had a "holiday" release there. I know I could look this up,

but is TP going for a simultaneous worldwide release (or at least Japan

and America)? That seems way out of character for our old Nintendo.

Mayhaps this new Reggie run Ninty is different though.

- Wes

Wind Waker did just barely make a holiday release in Japan. The other versions were released a few months later. But with Twilight Princess, Nintendo has said for quite a while that they wanted to release the game in both Japan and North America by the end of 2004, with other regions probably getting it a bit later. There's no word on whether the game is still planned for a simultaneous release now that it has been delayed, but we do know that the delay itself is global...you won't be able to buy Zelda anywhere until at least April 2006.

Okay, I'm now I'm exhausted. Please keep the letters coming, but if you must ask about Zelda, try to say something new over what I've already published above!