Hello,

What are the chances that Nintendo will bundle a component cable standard with the Wii? I would really like to see Nintendo do what Microsoft did and release a cable that is both composite and component to keep the options open for consumers.

Thank You

Zero chance. Nintendo designed the console to work its magic on the majority of televisions out there, which don't have component input jacks. It wouldn't make sense to include something that most people wouldn't use. It's different with the Xbox 360 because MS designed the console to work with HDTVs, and they know that the people purchasing the system will need component cables. Besides, Nintendo will make more money by selling them separately. Hopefully, Wii component cables should be available in stores from day one. It would be dumb to need to order them through Nintendo's online store again.

Just letting everyone @ planetgamecube know, October 9 as was previously mentioned is correct. The game isn't mentioned on nintendo's master game list, but it was in their news section. Hey what do you think about this one,even though it wasn't at e3 this year? From the screen shots that i have seen so far, this one looks like it will be a blast & lots of fun. The game won't be in stores until the 10th. This is what i would call a recent edition to the paper mario series. Hopefuly it won't take the series the wrong direction

One thing that's new in this one is the ability to go from 2d to 3d. Who would have expected to be able to go from 2d to 3d?

wallypup

The date's correct, it's just that Nintendo hasn't updated their main page for the game. (Also, Nintendo lists their games for a Monday release, even though they don't show up until Tuesday or Wednesday.) Anyhoo, Super Paper Mario was one of those surprise announcements at E3, but didn't come out to play on the show floor due to Nintendo's decision to not show GameCube stuff.

I think the ability to switch views from 2D to 3D is going to be really cool. Think about the platforming action and puzzles they could pull off with a mechanic like that! It goes along with the style of the Paper Mario games, too. All the characters know that they're 2D, so I wonder how they'll work that into whatever oddball story they come up with. I really hope that it doesn't get lost in the console transition shuffle, though, wherein people could overlook it as the Wii (and PS3) start to get closer to release and the GameCube becomes even more irrelevant. Hopefully Wii backward compatibility will prevent that.

Hey, nice mail bag, but one thing. The reasoning that you have for why Wii games don't use fixed aiming is incorrect.

It is a technical impossibility for Wii games to have fixed aiming in First Person Shooters.

The concept involving this is slightly complex, so I'll explain it as simply as possible. When you are pointing your Wiimote at the center of the screen, and holding it perfectly still, the character will face forward, in the direction that you are pointing. Now, say that you wish to turn your character 90 degrees. You would simply turn the controller 90 degrees and your character now faces that direction. However, now your controller is at a 90 degree angle. On screen, your character is doing exactly what you want it to do. If you push the B trigger, it will shoot onscreen, in the exact direction that you wished to fire. However, your character is facing where you wanted, but the controller is pointed off the screen. When you move the controller back so it is pointing to the center of the screen, your onscreen character turns with you, right back to where you started.

A mouse works with direct aiming because you can pick up the mouse and recenter it if you have to, without the mouse regestering the motion. Also, on a mouse, where your mouse is doesn't directly correspond with where you are aiming. On Wii, the entire premise is that where you aim on screen is where your character aims in the game. The concept of aiming and shooting like this is far more appealing than quick, yet non intuitive turning, so developers opted for the invisible box control setup as a compromise.

If you still don't understand what I'm talking about, try using a flashlight to simulate the Wiimote. Turn on the flashlight and point it at your screen, so that the light acts like the crosshairs. Imagine a PC shooter, and try to replicate it on screen. You'll soon figure it out.

You're right about that. It didn't dawn on me that a fixed cursor in an FPS wouldn't work on the Wii, even as I was playing the games at E3. The best hope fixed-cursor fans have is if developers include an option to adjust how much cursor movement away from the center of the screen will move the camera. Then again, if developers like Retro Studios or Ubisoft Paris nail the control setup for their games, that may not be necessary.

Long-time, first-time. Alright, so what I really want to know is about the Wii's region-coding. I'm assuming that Wii games will be region-coded, although rumors of the PS3's lack of region-coding kind of throw that question up in the air. Do we know anything about that?

And the really tricky question: yes, the Wii is backwards-compatible, but does that mean I'll be able to use my GC Action Replay to load Region-2 discs on the Wii, or will I need to keep my GC to continue being able to play my copies of Naruto 4 and Bleach GC?

-Rurouni Q

If you were really a long-time reader, you would have known that I already answered the question about console regions! You're a big fat liar. I'm a nice guy, though, so I'll tell you again and answer the other part of your question. Yes, the Wii games hardware will most certainly be regional. There's no reason for Nintendo to do otherwise, and no advantage for them to do so.

The Action Replay, Freeloader or any other type of GC boot disc may or may not work with the Wii. The system should read the discs normally, but the issue I see with that is once you put the disc into the self-loading drive, how do you get it out? The Wii may handle hitting the eject button differently than opening the lid on the GameCube. The system might return to the main Wii browser menu upon ejecting a disc, for example. I wouldn't doubt that the Wii can technically play GameCube games from any region, but getting it to work may be a different story. I would hold on to the GameCube for Japanese games for the near future.

I know this is a related question to a topic you covered extensively this past mailbag, but do you think it's possible to play GC games with the new Wii Virtual Console Controller? The original GC controller was great for 1st party and 2nd party GC games but pretty sucky for most 3rd party (except RE4) offerings. I am especially interested in the answer because I play a lot of Capcom vs SNK 2 on my GC. The GC controller just doesnt cut it though with it's tiny d-pad and oddly positioned jelly/big/small buttons. A controller that resembles the SNES controller (which in my humble opinion was the best control pad made) with two additional joysticks would be a perfect controller to play a Street Figher game with. Now I just hope I can get online Wii Steeet Fighter matches like the XBOX 360 is currently enjoying.

I wouldn't bet on it. I think the biggest strike against it happening comes in the form of the shoulder buttons on the Wii classic, which don't at all resemble the GC controller's trigger-plus-button shoulders. At least, the one on display that had two shoulder buttons. (The controller connected to the Virtual Console setup at E3 only had one shoulder button.) For the traditional controller to work with GameCube games, all triggers and buttons must be accounted for, and while there are plenty of face buttons, I don't think the shoulder buttons are going to have the same functionality as the GC controller's. Maybe you should find a decent third party GC controller if you haven't tried that yet.

I was just hoping you may have some insight on the possibility of some games I'd love to come Nintendo's way. First is there any plans for Rockstar to be involved with the Wii (specifically GTA). Also, I can't wait to get Dragon Quest on the Wii and am looking forward to Final Fantasy Chrystal Chronicles as well. I was just wondering if Square had any plans to create a completely new series for the Wii as they did with Kingdom Hearts and is there any possibility to see Kingdom Hearts make the leap over to Wii? I also read somewhere that Konami would not bring Metal Gear to the Wii, so I was wondering if Konami had plans on making something similar for the Wii? The last question for now is does Nintendo have a Donkey Kong and Star Fox game in the works for the Wii?

Brandon

Short answers: No, maybe probably and probably not, no plans, almost certainly.

Long answers:

The only way we'll see GTA on Wii is if the console sells more units than the PS3 and 360 combined, becoming the new market leader. I feel that way because Take-Two (parent of Rockstar) probably won't put their big gun on the Wii unless they know it's going to sell millions. GTA4 is headed to the Xbox 360 because T2 sees that Microsoft's console fits the market that the game is targeted towards, and knows that they're going to have a significant piece of the market this time around. The Wii is still an unknown, but if Nintendo can get it into a ton of people's hands, publishers will put every kind of game imaginable on it because of the potential audience. At least Take-Two has expressed interest in making games for Wii, but those are just 2K's sports games for now.

Square-Enix has been giving Nintendo lots of love lately. Final Fantasy III on the DS and the new Crystal Chronicles games are going to be nice. The “new series" you're wishing for has already arrived, that of course being Crystal Chronicles, a series that's going to stay in the Nintendo camp for a while. If you want something new in the vein of Kingdom Hearts from Square-Enix, it's probably not going to happen for a few years after the Wii has been released, and lots of people have a chance to buy whatever game they develop. For now at least, they are focusing their attention on the dominant platforms.

Outside of MGS, Konami hasn't done any stealth games of note, and definitely not for a Nintendo platform. (Twin Snakes doesn't count, Silicon Knights developed that.) The best I would hope for from Konami in terms of Wii support is a Winning Eleven game, but I don't think there will be any tactical espionage action from the company for Nintendo's platform. If you want something similar to Metal Gear Solid, look forward Ubisoft's Tom Clancy games. Ubi has always lent their support to Nintendo, so there will almost certainly be Wii versions of Splinter Cell and/or Rainbow Six.

Asking whether or not Nintendo is working on something DK or SF for Wii is folly. Because they are Nintendo franchises, they will be on every single platform they ever make, Wii included. Asking when the games could come out would be a better thing to wonder, and being the nice guy I am, I'll speculate on that: Donkey Kong first, Star Fox after that.

I think you need to set people straight regarding the sensor bar. You don't point at the sensor bar, you point at the tv with the sensor bar underneath it and the sensor bar tracks your movement in relation to where you are aiming to controller on the tv.

Let's make this 100% clear, once and for all: You point the remote at the sensor bar. Because the bar and display are so close to each other, and the controller is being held from a great enough distance, the position difference between the two is negligible. However, realize that you are aiming for the sensor bar near the TV, and not the TV itself.

To understand this for yourself, grab a TV remote and aim it right against the middle of a TV set, against the surface. Try turning it off or changing the channel. Doesn't work, does it? Now find the TV's IR receptor and point it directly at that, point-blank. Works like a charm.

Infrared technology, like that featured in the Wii remote controller, requires line-of-sight to work properly. If the transmitter (the Wii controller) and the receiver (the sensor bar) can't see each other, they can't communicate. Just like how a TV remote doesn't work well when not pointing directly at the TV's IR sensor, the Wii controller won't work well unless it has a clear path to the sensor bar receiver. Pointing at the display from distance will still send IR signals to the receiver, but if you're too close and still pointing more toward the television, the bar may have trouble reading the remote. This was a problem at E3 until Nintendo booth attendants asked everyone to step back from the sensor bars (and the televisions they were attached to) as far as possible. After that, things worked better.

All of this new technology is confusing for a lot of people. However, the only thing we need to know is that Nintendo somehow made it all work, we're going to have it in our homes by Thanksgiving, and it's going to be awesome.

So Here I am, feeding the bag...

My question is such...

How much longer do you all think will it be until Nintendo will drop the price/release information on us, and what would your predictions be for such information?

Nintendo top man and all-around awesome guy Satoru Iwata has said that the Wii's price and launch details will be known to the world “by September." This would peg Tokyo Game Show 2006 as the obvious front-runner for the event in which everything about the console is finally out in the open, and I agree with that logic. Nintendo may drop some tidbits along the way to keep the hype train rolling, but the rest of the major details will probably come out in Japan this September.

I've already mentioned what I think the price of the console is going to be numerous times ($199). As for the release date, Sony did Nintendo a big favor by revealing the release date of the PS3, giving Nintendo an opportunity to plan around November 17. It would be wise for Nintendo to release the Wii before the PS3 arrives, and far enough away from it so they don't need to worry about losing press coverage to the PS3 juggernaut. Since Nintendo always releases new hardware on a Sunday, the best possible date of release I foresee would be November 5. Of course, that's speculation on my part, but it would be a good date to hit, far enough away so Nintendo has time to stockpile machines for launch, and not too close to the PS3 launch. We'll see, though.

The end.

Well, that's the end of this week's edition of the PlanetGameCube Mailbag. We can do it again next week, but only if you send me in some questions! Send in your correspondence to that lovely e-mail address below, and be sure to tell us your name (or Internet-name if you prefer) so we can give credit where credit is due. And remember, I'm not a broken record player, so be sure to keep tabs on what's been going on in bagsville by reading the back issues. Until next time.