[GDC] Revolution info! DS online info! Nintendo is going online, kids!

[OB1]

Iwata is supposed to be giving a talk any minute now, and he's (supposedly) going to show of the online capabilities of the DS (or "no-line", whatever), show off a new Zelda trailer (it may just be the extended one from last E3 that was never released to the public), as well as a few more surprises.

So I'll post all of the updates here, and I suggest the rest of you do the same.

Woo!

[OB1]

Here we go, folks!! http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3138770

Nintendo Revolution To Be Backwards Compatible
Also revealed: Free DS online service and new Zelda details
by Che Chou
03/10/2005
Nintendo president Satoru Iwata kicked off his keynote speech this morning to much fanfare at the 2005 Game Developer Conference in San Francisco this morning. We'll have full details and analysis of the event soon, but in the meantime, here's the official press release straight from the source:
Iwata, a veteran video game designer and player himself, made several major announcements during his Game Developers Conference keynote speech, "The Heart of the Gamer," including such highlights as:

* Nintendo???s next game console, code-named "Revolution," is proceeding on schedule and will include both backward compatibility and Wi-Fi features.

* Nintendo soon will offer a free Wi-Fi connection service to Nintendo DS owners.

* Iwata demonstrated several new software titles using the innovative features of the Nintendo DS, including voice recognition, touch-screen control and wireless connectivity.

* Iwata unveiled new images from the highly anticipated Legend of Zelda adventure coming this year for Nintendo GameCube.

"This is Nintendo???s plan: make our existing game world better," Iwata said. "For us, this is a passion. This is a mission of adventure."

Revolution: Iwata announced that Revolution will feature built-in Wi-Fi protocols, which will allow users around the world to connect with one another wirelessly. Revolution???s technological heart, a processing chip developed with IBM and code-named "Broadway," and a graphics chip set from ATI code-named "Hollywood," are being designed to deliver game experiences not possible to date.

"We???re excited to be developing the graphics chip set for Revolution, which continues our longstanding relationship with Nintendo," says Dave Orton, ATI Technologies Inc.???s president and chief executive officer. "As the leading graphics provider, ATI is committed to delivering exceptional visual performance that enables consumers to interact with new and visually compelling digital worlds. ATI is proud to support Nintendo???s innovative contributions to gaming."

Nintendo DS: Iwata announced that the Wi-Fi protocol for Nintendo DS will provide users with a link to other players across the country or around the world. Once the service begins later this year, Nintendo DS users will be able to connect to the service wirelessly at Wi-Fi hot spots, whether they???re at home, in a hotel or at a coffee shop. As one of several Wi-Fi games, Nintendo???s in-house development team is creating a new Animal Crossing game for global Wi-Fi play.

On the keynote stage, Iwata also took part in a spontaneous eight-player wireless contest of Mario Kart DS to demonstrate the local area network capabilities of Nintendo DS. He added that shipments of the DS game system have now surpassed 4 million units to North America and Japan in the 16 weeks since launch. With the system set to debut in thousands of stores across Europe within hours of his address, that number will approach 6 million units shipped by the end of March.

DS software: The speech featured a live demonstration of two Nintendo DS software titles that Iwata said represented types of entertainment that go beyond the traditionally accepted definitions of "video games." One, Nintendogs, asks owners to nurture and interact with a variety of breeds of digital puppies. Puppy owners can issue voice commands, play games and train their puppies while developing real emotional bonds with them. Nintendogs is set to launch later this year in North America. The second title, Electroplankton, offers an otherworldly array of sights and sounds aimed to soothe or stimulate players with the innovative use of both the touch screen and voice interaction. "This is designed to produce harmony, not adrenaline," Iwata said.

He also wowed the crowd by showing previously unreleased footage of the stunning Legend of Zelda adventure for Nintendo GameCube. The game will launch later this year, and is expected to be the most sought-after game of 2005 on any console.

Awesome! Free DS online (told ya so, ABF :p ), Animal Crossing DS online, new Zelda footage! Someone better post that somewhere soon!

[OB1]

I thought it'd be best to split my one thread into two since Zelda needs its own topic.

[Dark Jaguar]

Sounds good.

[Sacred Jellybean]

*ejaculates*

[OB1]

You win!

[Great Rumbler]

This is definitely a prelude to the E3.

Awesome news, by the way.

[The Former DMiller]

Glad to hear the DS is finally going online. Even though I don't play online much (read: ever) it definitely moves me closer to buying a DS, especially since Animal Crossing is going online.

[OB1]

Derek, you better get one so that you can live in Bojacksonville with GR and myself. It's going to be the coolest town in the galaxy!

[Dark Jaguar]

I just read some details I skimmed over before, yep, there's where they announced that AC DS would be online. Awesome.

Now then, HOW online? Going to different towns is nice, but wow do I have some ideas to really take it places... The various critters of the world should be constantly on the move the second you get online, but not just to places you are actually going. I want to see someone move from a town I've never heard of. Encourage me to go to all manner of towns. I dunno, cool stuff. Basically, I want total strangers to just show up if I enable that option to let people just show up. One thing that'll be cool is finally being able to have more than one human in a town at once. I wonder what the max is? I'd be happy with 4, but 16 would be awesome.

I really don't see how they would let you actually MOVE to another city though... Or create a new character in another's city... I see a lot of problems with something like that... Even if they did some linking, the only way it would work is if you could ONLY go to the town when you were linked to the other people, otherwise some big continuity and synching stuff is going to happen... Requiring EVERYONE to link up at all times would be a bother... They could set up a master town, the one that can play by themselves, but really, you'd still have to wait for them to get home before you could play. I would love for that to be possible, but I just don't see it happening...

Unless they go for persistant worlds... Unless, they let you set up a persistant world server DS that has to be ALWAYS on... The latter would create problems for obvious reasons. The former... well if you guys are willing to pay the fee Nintendo would charge for setting up a persistant world on their servers... sure go for it... Well, they could also let you download persistant world server programs for your PC so the players get to be the server masters around the world... But... it's Nintendo, I don't think they will do that.

[OB1]

I'd like to be able to invade other peoples' towns.

[Great Rumbler]

And have pitched battles in order to gain more land...and decapitation.

[OB1]

Well maybe not that. But something mischievous along the lines of Four Swords.


.... Oh MAN... FS DS is going to kick ass online. I promise that if you guys don't hate me now, you WILL after you play me in FS. I am pure EVIL in that game. Miyamoto is a genius!

[Dark Jaguar]

Okay then no, I won't play you in that game :D.

[OB1]

Heh. How do you play FS?

[Dark Jaguar]

Well we generally race to get the most rupees or force gems, but we aren't like dedicated to it. If someone wants to move on, we agree to just ignore silly gem fighting, and attacking each other like children is off limits, as is stealing dummy characters.

[OB1]

That sounds incredibly boring. You're supposed to fight like children. I play the way Miyamoto plays: dirty.

[Dark Jaguar]

I... guess? Didn't you once say you and your friends played nicely with each other and accused us of all playing like jerks?

[OB1]

In Four Swords??

[Dark Jaguar]

I believe you brought it up there, or in Crystal Chronicles... one of those... I dunno, guess it doesn't matter... Anyway, it's not like the second I'm in a game world all possible behavior is acceptible. I try to be nice and consider what everyone else wants to do so there's no fighting or anything.

[OB1]

Muh? I've always played games like that when possible. And you can't do stuff like that in CC, which is one of the reasons I didn't care for it.

[Dark Jaguar]

Well actually you can, there are goals to achieve that put you in conflict with the others. Generally you can really make your friends upset by going out of the party's way to achieve them. However, I knew that it was best to only try enough that it wouldn't make people upset when I went after some goals. I really think courtesy is important virtually as well as in real life.

...

All that goes out the window in a complete and total vs match though... Well, except that I'm still polite in conversation. Bragging is wrong.

[OB1]

You are such a video game ninny! :p

[Dark Jaguar]

Yes, I happen to have two shoes, and they are goody... No matter...

I guess all in all we just have some very different attitudes towards this. I'm fine in playing a vs match against you in a total competition though. Then it's all about doing whatever you can to utterly defeat the enemy.

Basically I think that good sportsmanship is a very important thing to learn... You know how you are about guns and how I'm different? Well, I guess it's the same on this issue.

[OB1]

I suppose so.

But did you see that E3 2002 video where Miyamoto, Yuji Naka, and some Capcom and Namco guy were playing Four Swords and they kept on hitting each other, stealing each other's rupees, and throwing each other off cliffs? All while laughing their heads off? That's how it was meant to be played, and that's how I play it. It makes things so much damn fun.

[Dark Jaguar]

Yeah, I saw their commercial done for the purpose of selling the game.

Ya know, there are times we just go at it, but it's all under common agreement to do so. It's understood that one jackarse wanting to burninate everyone when the rest really want to move on is just being inconsiderate, and they are called as such.

[OB1]

I have this hilarious picture in my mind, of you and a bunch of other people sitting around playing Four Swords, sipping tea and in your finest sunday dresses. With monocles. Don't ask why, the monocles are just there.

:D

You know, I've always thought of you as a Susie Derkins type. You read Calvin and Hobbes, right? And don't take that as an insult!

[OB1]

"What the--!! Who the--?? Who cut down these gosh darned trees?? Who? Who did this? OB1?? Did you do this, OB1?! Why did you have to cut down my darned trees?!! OB1 you meanie!!"


:D

[Dark Jaguar]

Actually no... LL does, I've never been that entertained by it...

And um, who the heck is this Derkins?

It's generally like this. "Who has the moon pearl?" "I got it!" "Well bring it here! I found the sparkly spot!" "Okay here we go." "Wait a sec, how come we can't come in?" "Huh, it's color coded" "I guess... we just wait..." "Pfft, nuts to that! I got a bunch of heart containers!" "Yeah, thanks for sharing..." "Shut up... I'm just going to charge the cannonballs. I think I can brute force it." "Um, guys? Yeah making it here was easy but-" "Hey was there anything cool down there?" "Ya see we-" "Hey, I said is there anything down there?" "No! Nothing down there... There's 4 switches over here." "Now you see, that's something." "No, I mean in the LIGHT world..." "Oh, you're out already... didn't see that... my bad..." "Yes, it is. Yeah, 4 switches here. How the heck am I supposed to press them all?" "Um, any blocks?" "No, no blocks at all... Hey, let me get that dummy character." "Um, okay I have like half a heart container here. I don't think I can brute force it..." "Yeah, you can't. ... Try it again! It'll work!" "What, my plan or your plan to loot my corpse?" "Eh, either way is good" "No thanks..." "Um, can I get that dummy Link?" "I don't know, you still won't be able to push all the switches, and what if we were in 4 player mode? Then we wouldn't have that anyway. No, it's gotta be something else...." "Look, let's just check out that other room..." "Yeah okay... get over here!" "Hmm, okay I'm heading back..." " AAAAAGGG! Okay that sucks... I'm dead..." "Yay! Deadly treasure! Wee! It hurts so rich!" "Great... vultures..." "Haha, hey it's all fair!" "Yeah yeah... shut up..." "Look, I don't HAVE to do this, but I'll just let you have a few giant force gems okay?" "...fine... thanks..." "Hmm, interesting..." "...lovely" *laughter commencicon* "Okay now let's... hey where are you going?" "Wait I have one more idea!" "ugh..." "Look trust me on this..." *dark world character picks up light world character* "WHAT THE!" "You're kidding me..." "You can DO that?!" "I can DO that? I can't believe that worked!" "Okay guys I think I've just about rushed it all the way!" *the other 3 are still laughing and haven't heard the 4th person who is now trying to brute force it... again...* "What the, who's the idiot wandering here?" "I've just about made it!" "We FOUND OUT HOW!" "I don't care! I want revenge on this game!" "But" "Shut up!" "You actually made it? You actually brute forced it?" "Huh..." "Hah! I showed that game!" "Yep, only took you a life and most of your hearts to do it too! Can you make it back?" "...Um... yeah sure, that's easy." "Fine fine, but" "You idiot! Get back there! We're still all working towards those switches the RIGTH way!" "Ack! Heeelp meeeeee!" "Yeah I think I'll just be tossing you around now." "As in my fantasy?" "Uuuuuummmm...." "You know what... let's just start all over again... Hi, my name's Quagmire!" "Family Guy is awesome." "We're all huge nerds..." "Wait, no not... aaiiiiiii!" "That's a hole" "Yes, yes it is..." "I hate being dead..." "Ya notice that none of us looted Purple this time?" "Well, I thought mercy would be nice... ya know..." "I thought I didn't want the same thing to happen to me. I only have like one heart..." "I was too busy being thrown around by this idiot." "Yeah, what's down there anyway?" "Something that's an insult to you!" "Oh... anything more specific?" "Ozzie" "Ahahahaha..." "Um, not that funny..." "Yes... yes it was!" "Anyone going to come get me?" "I'm on my way okay? Just don't struggle okay? We don't want you dying again..." "Look maybe I brute forced a puzzle twice, even after you solved it, and maybe even after I managed to actually do it I went BACK when everyone else was coming here and died AGAIN, but um... okay I really don't get where this is going... MUSH!" "Yessum..." "Okay finally!" "Let's goooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!" "Yes... let's... let's go..."

That about sums up the standard experience...

[OB1]

You don't like Calvin and Hobbes? Blasphemy!

[Dark Jaguar]

I dunno, I've just never actually read that much of it.

Oh well....

So um... that's the only thing you have to comment on?

[OB1]

No that was a very amusing pargraph! Not much to be said about it.

[A Black Falcon]

Awesome! Free DS online (told ya so, ABF ), Animal Crossing DS online, new Zelda footage! Someone better post that somewhere soon!

Told me so? Huh? Given how long Nintendo has been saying 'we'll do online free or we won't do it at all, I fully expected that if they ever got their act together and made an online service it'd be free... that isn't the issue, the issue is getting an accessible wi-fi hotspot in the first place. Still, this is pretty good news... though a home console definitely should also support wires. :)


Animal Crossing Online: It's all about the item trading, DJ... getting the items is what gets people to keep playing online RPGs and this is no exception... you want your perfect house and stuff, or whatever. Sounds boring to me unless there's more to it though... oh well, not liike I'll be getting it.


Four Swords: Sometimes it's fun to just be mean and beat on eachother, and you can't avoid some carnage while you go through the missions, but if you spend most of your time fighting you'll never get anywhere and I would rather actually FINISH the missions sometime... :)

Calvin & Hobbes: Have all of the books, save one Sundays collection. Read them all. Best cartoon ever. Go read it, DJ. Really. Start now... it was utterly original when it first started and its brilliance still shows. Plenty of current newspaper comics try to be a little like it, but nothing is as great a it was...

http://www.calvinandhobbes.com

[lazyfatbum]

Everybody was kung-fu fighting. Those kicks were fast as lightning. In fact, it was a little bit frightening... But they fought with expert timing. There were funky China men from funky china town, they were chopping them up, they were chopping them down; It's an ancient chinese art and everybody knew their part. From a fainting to a snip, and I kick it from the hip.

[OB1]

Yes, C&H is the best comic strip ever.

[OB1]

Told me so? Huh? Given how long Nintendo has been saying 'we'll do online free or we won't do it at all, I fully expected that if they ever got their act together and made an online service it'd be free... that isn't the issue, the issue is getting an accessible wi-fi hotspot in the first place. Still, this is pretty good news... though a home console definitely should also support wires.

I told you a few days ago, remember?

[A Black Falcon]

"I told you so" is something you say when the other person said that that woouldn't happen...

Yes, C&H is the best comic strip ever.

So we agree on a couple of things. :)

Seriously, anyone who hasn't read it must read it. Now!

[OB1]

You said that you didn't believe it.

[A Black Falcon]

Quote or link whatever discussion you're talking about, OB1, because I don't remember.

[OB1]

It was like three days ago!

[A Black Falcon]

Then the thread should be easy to find!

[OB1]

Fine, here you go you big lazy ass!

And yes, it is progress... but I'm waiting for the substantive facts before I get any hopes up, that's for sure.

[A Black Falcon]

Oh, that. That's called skepticism that Nintendo actually would doanything online sometime soon given how long they have done nothing. Well justified by now, I think. Nothing to do with pricing...

[OB1]

There were rumors a while ago, too, remember? I made a thread about it. I was convinced, you were not.

Just pointing that out is all.

[A Black Falcon]

Why should I be convinced about ANYTHING regarding Nintendo and online given everything they've said about it for several years? Until, that is, we get concrete statements?

[OB1]

There were some pretty good facts pointing to that direction.

[A Black Falcon]

Skepticism is not a bad thing, OB1.

[OB1]

That's great.

[Great Rumbler]

[N_A]

It also looks like according to NP, unlike Sony and MS's pay to play online systems, Nintendo's system will be free, as a result of teaming up with Gamespy for their match making service, just like how PC games are free to play online. I suppose this will be true for games that will not require massive server loads to maintain a consistent universe, such as one shot games like Mario Kart for example.