Baby steps... baby steps...

[Dark Jaguar]

http://kotaku.com/gaming/nintendo/ninten...334064.php

I never really expected straight emulated ROMs to get new features, so I don't have much to say about the "lack" of online play in the "virtual consoles". That'll have to wait until Nintendo sees fit to make new and improved versions of their old games as "Wii Ware" downloads.

The addition of voice chat to the system is a step in the right direction. I will add one note. If privacy and online safety is "jorb one" at Nintendo, adding voice chat of all things more or less negates EVERY SINGLE EFFORT THEY HAVE MADE to do exactly that. So, I'm saying they should take the hint and STOP DOING all that. :D As I've said before, it's simply a matter of putting parental controls into the online features of the system, right into the OS, which all games just need to tie into in order to be properly protected. Now I'm realistic. I know most parents have no idea how to set up those controls. I just don't care. This is a token gesture anyway, might as well not get in the way of most gamers in the attempt.

Anyway, this is a good move but I do have to wonder how they are implementing it. If it's like the DS, as I fear, it'll mean "a couple of games will have coded in support for voice chat", instead of the vastly superior "the OS itself will have coded in support for voice chat" which would mean EVERY game would hve support and it's just a matter of how they implement it. Mind you, to do that, they need to do the whole schtick of a persistant online profile from game to game, shared friends list, invites from the OS, ability to check up that info by using the "home" menu, that whole thing.

In other news, Sony intends to add in full "home" menu support for their online network on the PS3, meaning they'll have pretty much feature parity with XBox Live, only free. That'll pretty much cut Nintendo out completely.

And oh yes, just a reminder. Nintendo hasn't innovated anything NEW for online features either, like at all. They don't do anything unique when it comes to online networks. They just are outdated.

[Great Rumbler]

Pokemon on the DS had voice-chat ages ago.

[Dark Jaguar]

You uh... you didn't read anything I said there did you?

[A Black Falcon]

They certainly could do online play on the VC, but given that they don't even have RUMBLE support, much less controller pak support, SNES mouse support via the Wiimote, light gun support (if they had it they'd release lightgun games, you can bet on it), savestate support, etc, I wouldn't exactly hold my breath...

(note that none of these things require rom edits to add, just hardware emulation -- take the 'lightgun' input and translate it into Wiimote controls, just like PC SNES emulators do with mice...)

As for voice chat, given that they'd make it friends list only, it wouldn't affect Nintendo's privacy policy. That's what GR meant, I think... they do have games with voice chat on DS (Metroid Prime Hunters, for instance). It'd be just like that.

Mind you, to do that, they need to do the whole schtick of a persistant online profile from game to game, shared friends list, invites from the OS, ability to check up that info by using the "home" menu, that whole thing.

I don't really expect any of those things anytime in the forseeable future... it's possible, but unlikely.

[Dark Jaguar]

I don't see savestates happening in the typical emulator way... ever... Companies just don't want to do that. Right now they do have a sort of save state though. I have both Bonk games and what they do is just set it up like a "temporary save" which is created when you quit and deleted when you continue, to prevent cheating I guess but still allowing you to stop playing.

[A Black Falcon]

Savestates are so nice in a lot of old games, though... some old games are just too hard to play without savestates, really, unless you spend a huge amount of time playing them. I know interrupt save is there, but that's just a delay, not an actual savestate...