10th August 2007, 9:25 AM
So a gentle blue pulse tells me there's something new, and that something new is a Metroid Prime 3 preview for download. I was quite happy to find Nintendo was finally taking this step that both MS and Sony were doing, or so I thought.
It's not a game demo. Unfortunate, but understandable considering the space limitations on the Wii. Even ONE demo would take up more than 512 MB in a single go.
It's a preview video. Well, that's something, but Nintendo screwed this up. Here's what you actually download. Basically, it's just a small app that goes online and STREAMS the preview video onto your screen. Nintendo's servers aren't exactly up to this task though. That means 3 minutes of "buffering" for roughly 5 seconds of video at a time. I've got things to do, and that's the most inhumane way to watch video humans have ever concieved. It's like dental work before pain killers.
I'd suggest Nintendo just add a video section where we can download videos, indeed, a list of queued up downloads that continue in the background as we continue to use the Wii (just like all the other systems) as opposed to this waiting for Mario to hit a bunch of blocks while we can't do anything else on the system. However, aside from Nintendo still having a way to go, there's also the space issue. The fact is, Nintendo needs to release a hard disk for the system, and this is the proof. It's the main reason we aren't getting video and game demo downloads on this system.
On the other hand, Nintendo is finally adding USB support. It's limited, not in the web browser yet for example, but at least I can finally TYPE messages to people on my contact list so there's that. Now if they could redo the contact list into something worthwhile...
It's not a game demo. Unfortunate, but understandable considering the space limitations on the Wii. Even ONE demo would take up more than 512 MB in a single go.
It's a preview video. Well, that's something, but Nintendo screwed this up. Here's what you actually download. Basically, it's just a small app that goes online and STREAMS the preview video onto your screen. Nintendo's servers aren't exactly up to this task though. That means 3 minutes of "buffering" for roughly 5 seconds of video at a time. I've got things to do, and that's the most inhumane way to watch video humans have ever concieved. It's like dental work before pain killers.
I'd suggest Nintendo just add a video section where we can download videos, indeed, a list of queued up downloads that continue in the background as we continue to use the Wii (just like all the other systems) as opposed to this waiting for Mario to hit a bunch of blocks while we can't do anything else on the system. However, aside from Nintendo still having a way to go, there's also the space issue. The fact is, Nintendo needs to release a hard disk for the system, and this is the proof. It's the main reason we aren't getting video and game demo downloads on this system.
On the other hand, Nintendo is finally adding USB support. It's limited, not in the web browser yet for example, but at least I can finally TYPE messages to people on my contact list so there's that. Now if they could redo the contact list into something worthwhile...
"On two occasions, I have been asked [by members of Parliament], 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able to rightly apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question." ~ Charles Babbage (1791-1871)