Topic: That tiny Wii of yours...

[UncleBob]

...sure is gonna take up a lot of space.

Four Wii Controllers.
Four Nunchucks.
Four GameCube Controllers/WaveBirds
Four Sets of Bongos (DK Bongo Blast!!!)
Two-Four Classic Controllers
Steering Wheel attachments
Zapper II attachments

Wow - no wonder the Wii is so small, you need all the space you can get.

[JonLeung]

When the Virtual Console has all my past games (or at least most of them), I can put away the four past Nintendo consoles and all their games and controllers and accessories.  So I'll have room.  I don't think I'll need four sets of bongoes, steering wheel attachments, or Zapper attachments.  I had a worry about too many accessories but we'll see what happens.

[UncleBob]

You'll never be able to put away your SNES, since, from what I'm aware of, we'll never be able to play five player games using the Wii's VC...

[JonLeung]

I never actually owned a Super Multitap (or whatever the Super NES multiplayer acessory was called) or any games that use it, despite loving the Super Bomberman games (even the Japanese ones...3 and 4 had the best vs. music!).

If I ever get a hankering for the two Killer Instinct games, that may be a problem though.  I'm really surprised I don't own more Rareware games, though.  I loved the Banjo-Kazooie games and of course GoldenEye.

My NES selection is a mishmash of games, but the majority of games from the Super NES onward are Nintendo's own, so there's a good chance most of them will be available on the Virtual Console at some point.  Assuming I think it's worth it to rebuy my collection...which (perhaps sadly), I do.

[Strell]

I already have 4 Bongos and 4 Wavebirds all set aside for the Wii, and in their own respective cases.

There is a case reserved for the Wiimotes + nunchucks.  Chances are good it can hold 4 classic controllers as well.

Additional stuff will get its own case.

Thank god for Ikea.

[Dirk Temporo]

It won't take up any more space than any other system if you buy four of every accessory on the market for it. :|

[stevey]

"You'll never be able to put away your SNES, since, from what I'm aware of, we'll never be able to play five player games using the Wii's VC"

Iwata already said at the IWATATON last year that juse because the wii has four light dosen't mean the revolution is limited to four controllers, and I haven't heard him say any different since then.  

[Mario]

Why would you buy 4 classic controllers if you have 4 GC controllers... and nobody will buy Bongo Blast, let alone get out 4 bongos for it.

[Strell]

Also, my Wii takes up various amounts of space, depending on the circumstances.

[trip1eX]

I have 3 Wavebirds.  1 regular controller.  1 set of Bongos.  And 2 Speed Force Wheels with pedals and lap attachments, 1 of which is still brand new sealed in box.  I might sell that one.

[jasonditz]

Quote
Originally posted by: stevey
"You'll never be able to put away your SNES, since, from what I'm aware of, we'll never be able to play five player games using the Wii's VC"

Iwata already said at the IWATATON last year that juse because the wii has four light dosen't mean the revolution is limited to four controllers, and I haven't heard him say any different since then.

One can only hope so... the TG16 also supported 5 controllers IIRC. And the Saturn, if that ever ends up supported in any form, could handle a ton... I remember playing an import wrestling game six player... and I'm fairly sure we used two multitaps to play a hockey game with 8 or 9 guys once. The wrestling game was fabulous... the hockey game was way too messy with that many people all trying to be on screen all the time.

Of course, I'm not sure we can take "Iwata already said" as any sort of assurance, given (insert broken promise here).

[UncleBob]

Saturn supported 10 players, I believe.  I know there was the 10-Player Bomberman game for it (Oh, how I'd love that for Wii - online)...

[BigJim]

Will the bottom half of the Wii turn yellow like the SNES did?

[jasonditz]

Quote
Originally posted by: UncleBob
Saturn supported 10 players, I believe.  I know there was the 10-Player Bomberman game for it (Oh, how I'd love that for Wii - online)...

Oh you're right... Saturn Bomberman did support 10 players with two of those 5 player adapters.

I had the controllers to swing it, and the game, and the adapters, but I could never get enough people who liked Bomberman to get that big a game going.

[AnyoneEB]

Uh, assuming the Wii's wireless only suports up to four controllers (which is what they seem to have been saying) + 4 GCN controllers, you can still only get up to eight. I guess, in theory, you could hook up two more via USB to get 10. I doubt Nintendo would bother to support that, though.

And putting off-line games that require fast reaction times online is generally a bad idea because they make no attempt to compensate for lag. I do not know how well it would work, but a Bomberman Wii would probably be better if you want online multiplayer.

[jasonditz]

I was thinking about it, and you could also solve it the same way Sega solved it with the Saturn: multitaps. There's no reason Nintendo couldn't make a wireless multitap that supports a bunch of wired or wireless controllers for massive multiplay. After all, when you think about it, it's already supporting 8 controllers (the four "motes" and the four nunchucks attached to the motes)

[JonLeung]

No, it's not actually supporting eight controllers...the Nunchuks add a control stick, an accelerometer, and two buttons to the WiiPointer, but the WiiPointer is the only part that sends input to the Wii itself.

Now, if the Nunchuks were a totally separate wireless portion, then it would be essentially eight controllers.  And then you could hope to use eight separate WiiPointers instead.  Or maybe eight Nunchuks?

[UltimatePartyBear]

Quote
Originally posted by: jasonditz
I was thinking about it, and you could also solve it the same way Sega solved it with the Saturn: multitaps. There's no reason Nintendo couldn't make a wireless multitap that supports a bunch of wired or wireless controllers for massive multiplay. After all, when you think about it, it's already supporting 8 controllers (the four "motes" and the four nunchucks attached to the motes)

Well, no.  When an attachment is connected to a remote, as far as the system is concerned that is one device.  However, when the controllers communicate with the console entirely wirelessly, the limitation on the number of controllers allowed is much more arbitrary than the number of hardware ports.  It depends on the communication protocol being used.  There's also a hit on the main processor for every controller it has to deal with, but I can't guess how significant that really is.

Since the Wii is using Bluetooth for this, the four controller limit is probably based on aesthetics and tradition more than anything technical.  A Bluetooth network can support seven devices, not counting the host (i.e. the Wii itself), so Nintendo could have claimed support for seven controllers, like Sony did.  It is theoretically possible that an add-on device could be made that takes up one of the seven slots, but is itself host to seven more, so the console could support thirteen controllers.  If Nintendo had planned for that sort of thing, though, I think they wouldn't have put just four lights on the remotes.

I suppose it's also possible that Nintendo is leaving three slots in the network free for other devices.  I doubt the DS would connect that way, but it could be anything from wireless headsets to crazy party game gizmos.

[UncleBob]

Crazy Party Game Gizmos?!?!  Where will we put all this stuff?

[jasonditz]

Quote
Originally posted by: JonLeung
No, it's not actually supporting eight controllers...the Nunchuks add a control stick, an accelerometer, and two buttons to the WiiPointer, but the WiiPointer is the only part that sends input to the Wii itself.

Now, if the Nunchuks were a totally separate wireless portion, then it would be essentially eight controllers.  And then you could hope to use eight separate WiiPointers instead.  Or maybe eight Nunchuks?

That's what I mean though... you don't necessarily need X wireless connections to the wii to support X controllers. imagine if they released something like the old NES Satellite. That could easily support multiple controllers using a single wireless connection to the Wii.

And it doesn't need to be restricted to wired controllers, either. You could have a wireless base station (presumably using a different wireless standard so as not to cause interference) that does something like this


Controller 1
Controller 2  ]]]]]    
Controller 3        ]]]]]]]    Base Station A  ]]]]]]]]]]         Wii Wireless Connection 1
Controller 4  ]]]]]                                              
Controller 5                                                        
                                 
Controller 6
Controller 7  ]]]]]    
Controller 8        ]]]]]]]    Base Station B  ]]]]]]]]]]          Wii Wireless Connection 2
Controller 9  ]]]]]                                            
Controller 10


While there might not be enough "more than 4 player" games to support the creation of this sort of thing, it seems perfectly reasonable that it could be done.

Even if it's not done for this specific reason though, how cool would it be to have a wireless adapter like that so you could use original controllers for the VC games instead of having to buy those "one-size-fits-all" classic controllers?

[AnyoneEB]

jasonditz: You could probably just make GCN controller port adapters for those controllers. Or splice into a VC controller plug.

[King of Twitch]

"Wow - no wonder the Wii is so small, you need all the space you can get."

At least with the Wii, you'll know you can still make the payments to live in a house in which to keep all the stuff.

[jasonditz]

I wonder if we're going to see a floor mat controller somewhere along the line so we can use our legs as well as our arms.