Hello Bag,

I've been thinking about the Miis, and I'm a little disappointed with the lack of true customizability. I understand that users can make the Mii look like pretty much anyone they want, but what's disappointing is that the style is the same on all of the Miis that a user could possibly create. Now that's all fine and dandy for the launch games that'll use the Miis, but what about more realistic games, or games with a different style? Either future games that want Mii support will have to conform to the Mii-ish style (which will make for very repetitive and boring game graphics a couple years down the line), or just not use them at all.

What I've been thinking about, however, is the possibility of something else. Since many Miis can be stored on a controller, I think it's safe to assume that the character mesh itself is not saved, but all of the numbers needed to recreate the character are. So what I'm wondering is if designers will realize this, and use that data to re-create the Mii in a different style. Just think about it, a custom character in something like Soul Caliber could just have different features assigned to every feature available in the Mii channel, and those features could look somewhat like the Mii ones, but in a Namco style, instead of a Mii style. So any character created in the Mii channel could be portrayed in Soul Caliber as one of the fighters. What do you think? Suppose devs would go for that to break up the Mii style a bit?

Miis would be stored as mere bytes of data, so you're right about that. Since the characters are created from a set number of options, each of parts could be assigned a number, which could be recreated by getting the appropriate shapes, parts and colors from a master list. You're obviously never going to see a Mii running around with a gun in a gory first-person shooter, but a lot of them offer options for customizable characters. If I made a Mii with black hair, brown eyes, a green shirt and black pants, it would be fantastic if I went to customize my in-game character and it had the the same general look that my Mii did. As long as Nintendo flagged each part of the Mii creation with a code that developers could use, it could very much happen.

Nintendo said that any Mii you encountered when playing against other people would be added to your system, and may appear in your games again. It would make sense if Miis appeared while playing online for this to happen quickly. I expect Miis to be used as personal avatars when playing against other people online. People on Xbox Live have Gamer Pictures next to their Gamertag, which is simply a small image that defines who that person is. The catch there is that you can only choose a picture from a limited pool, and you need to buy the really cool ones. A Mii would be the same thing for Nintendo's neck of the woods, but the difference is you can make it look like you, your friends or Samuel L. Jackson. I think it would be hilarious if an opponent's Mii appears in the corner of your screen and starts to cry if you kill them in a gory first-person shooter. It would help to remind us all that it's just a game, wouldn't it?

Hey PGC

I've got a question that's been really bothering. Sometimes when I read revews they metion something called framerate and refer to it's speed as FPS. And at other times they say things like: A game will run at 30 FPS or 60 FPS. Then I here that there's that one Ubisoft racing game for the Wii that ran on 30 FPS on the xbox and will run at 60 FPS on the Wii, and for some reason people treat it like it makes a big difference. Than they say that sometimes when playing a game "The fraimrate goes down"

So just to simplify the question I'm asking I'll ask this: What exactly is a framerate and how could you tell where it's at without looking at technical specs? Also how dose the difference between something like 30 FPS or 60 FPS effect the gameplay?

Just one of your many fans,

Viewtiful mario

A game's frame rate is the measure of how many times in a given second the display is updated, hence FPS or “frames per second." It's simply quantitative measure of how smoothly a game moves on your television screen. When talking about frame rate, the two issues you usually hear people talking about is what the FPS rate is, or whether or not the game can hold that rate consistently. Generally, higher FPS numbers are preferred over lower ones, and a consistent frame rate is preferred over both.

To give you a better idea of how the frame rate of a game can affect its playability, picture a wheel in the shape of a four-sided square. You can roll it, but it will be very slow going if you tried. Take that same wheel and give it 30 equal sides. Rolling it isn't difficult at all. If you give the wheel 60 sides, moving it around becomes even easier. Now, apply that to video games: 4 FPS will give you an extremely choppy game that is unplayable, games at 30 FPS are all sufficiently smooth and make up the majority of titles, and 60 FPS games have graphics that move very seamlessly.

In a perfect world, that wheel would be perfectly round. It's impossible to have an infinite FPS, and console hardware can only work so fast, so there needs to be a compromise on how much stuff a developer can render on screen at once and how quickly the system can process it. If more things are happening while you play a game, like multiple explosions with a lot of enemies around, you might notice that the action slows down a little bit. That's because the console processor can't process what's happening quickly enough to match the rate at which it is being displayed. Because a lot of developers are pressured to make a game that looks really good, they tend to overextend the hardware and produce games that have spotty frame rates. If they are too spotty, the choppy movement of what's happening can make the gameplay experience very frustrating.

Nintendo didn’t mention anything about the parental control function at the New York Press event and if memory serves me correctly, they talked about that function being part of the Wii before E3. Do you guys know what has happened to this information regarding the parental control function?

Nintendo hasn't said anything about this recently, but you've got to assume that the console will have some form of parental control. The Xbox 360 has controls in place, and with how family-friendly Nintendo is you would expect them to do the same thing. We'll need to wait for the Wii to get here before we know for sure!

The new Fire Emblem for Wii. It's going to be a sequel to the GCN game, so I haven't deleted my save yet in hopes that maybe the Wii game will use it in someway. Is it possible?

In the last mailbag you said that you can't transfer GCN saves to the Wii. But maybe Wii could access a save on the GCN memory cards?

I think it will be possible. A lot of GameCube games are already getting sequels on Wii, and it would be kind of neat for the new games to have some sort of bonus for people with GameCube saves of the old games. It might even be possible to import characters from the GameCube version of Fire Emblem to the Wii version.

Dear Bag "The Clamp" Mangioni,

I recently watched a video of a guy "dissecting" a Wii, a wiimote, and a nunchuck. Now, everything seems all well and good, but one thing bothers me, and that is the "synch" buttons. Apparently, there's one in the SD flap ont he Wii unit, then there's another one inside the Wiimote's battery case. All the guy says is that you have to press both buttons to sych-up, but does that mean simultaneously? Sequentially? I'd really like to know, because the inside of the battery case seems like a really inconvenient spot, almost as bad as the N-Gage's "cartridge port".

I mean, why not put the button on the left side or top of the wiimote instead?

Sincerely, Your Mother

I don't think you need to press them at the exact same time. It's likely to work like the Xbox 360 wireless controllers, where you press the button on the console for it to start looking for controllers, then the button on the controller for the two to hook up. While the sync button on the controller would be something you wouldn't press very often, I do agree with you that it's in an odd spot. Nintendo probably put it under the battery compartment because they didn't want it to be accidentally pressed as the controller was being waved around.

Hey bag,

I was watching some videos of the wii from the show floor and noticed in a few clips the wiimotes had the nun-chuku attachement plugged in to the wiimote along with what seemed to be a long cord that went off-screen. So i was wondering, are these cords for security so the wiimote never got stolen or was it to plug into a power outlet so the remote didn't go dead? If so will it be made available to the public?

Thanks

Justin

The corded Wii remotes are only for reasons of power, security and wireless interference. I don't think the controllers had batteries in them, but even if they did, you don't want people walking off with pre-release hardware. There was also the possibility of Nintendo not wanting to risk too much Bluetooth interference between systems. Even though each controller would have been connected to a unique console, you can never be too sure of things when there are 100+ controllers in the same room.

Whatever the exact reasons were, the retail controllers will be completely wireless (except for that 3 feet of cord for the nunchuk, of course). There will be no option to get a corded controller like those seen in press events. Kind of makes you wonder if the Wii demo stations will have corded controllers for security...but how will people play the games without breaking the cord off?

Hi,

I just had a question about the Wii component cables. The Wii will support 480p, yes, but can the cables be used to render GameCube games in 480p as well?

Thanks.

- Riad

Sure will. One set of cables will provide audio and video output for both Wii and GameCube games. No need for two separate sets of cables this time!

Hello PGC,

A few questions for the best Nintendo site on the planet:

1. I was just wondering about the wii sports game where u use the wiimote in an alternating fashion (bowling and golf). Can u just use 1 wiimote and just hand it off like u do with a controller in most bowling and golf games, or do u actually have to have a different wiimote for each player. I hope that you can just use 1 that way a much larger number of people will be able to get exposed to the games and hopefully make more people buy a wii.

2. How do u control the wii zelda camera? I usually control the camera with the c-stick all the time when I play wind waker, and I hope there will be some way to do the same thing in Twilight Princess wii.

3. Do you think Smash Bros. Brawl will be playable online?

4. When will your newly designed site be launched? Could it be Nov. 19th? Sorry if this was asked already.

Thanks and of course you guys rule,

Kristov

1. You know, I was thinking that very same thing as I was writing our Wii Sports preview update. It would be fair to assume that such a controller pass-around option exists; it had better, because forcing people to get extra controllers to play a game one controller at a time would be very uncool. If we find out before the system launch, we'll update our preview and let you know.

2. The only real control you'll have over it is to recenter the camera behind Link as you're running around, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. The same system was used in Ocarina of Time on the N64, and people managed it just fine. It's going to be a bummer without a customizable camera angle, but to tell you the truth, I didn't really use it all that much while I was playing Wind Waker. The game's auto camera was sufficient enough for my tastes most of the time. But not all of the time.

3. If it's not, Nintendo will have some explaining to do. One of the very first claims made by Satoru Iwata himself (besides it being readied for the Wii launch, oops) was that the game would be playable online. SSBB absolutely must be online, because it will instantly become Nintendo's online multiplayer killer app, like how Halo 3 is guaranteed to be a blockbuster multiplayer experience , system-seller and income generator for the 360 and Xbox Live. If Nintendo wants to push all of the Wii Channel features and WiiConnect24, they need to show that online is as a big a part of the Wii experience as the controller. It will be very hard to do that if their biggest multiplayer game isn't online.

4. Unfortunately, I can't say anything about the new PGC. We understand that everyone wants to know what our new name will be and when we'll change it, but please understand in return that there are a lot of things we need to do behind the scenes in order to make such a change. So please, bear with us. (And stop asking!) It will be worth it, I promise.

Have you been checking with us over the weekend? You might have noticed we posted a review, two previews and this mailbag update in the past 48 hours. We take pride in the fact that we're bringing someone new to our readers every single day, and not just Monday through Friday like those other guys.

You should put in the same effort! You can send in questions to the mailbag any day of the week. I read them all, and respond to the ones that I haven't heard over and over again...but only the good ones get printed. So send in a good one! The email address is at the bottom of the screen, so get crackin'. Please include your name (and location, if you want), because a little birdie told me that doing so might increase your chances of mailbag success! Maybe.

If you rearrange the letters in “maybe" you can spell “bye ma." Good-bye, mama.

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