Wednesday, May 31, 2006

What happened to Nintendo and Connectivity!? Is connectivity the next big Wii secret?


What ever happened to Nintendo's big push on connectivity!? With the Gamecube and the GameBoy Advance there was the big push on connectivity. Games like Metroid Prime and Metroid Fusion came with the option to link your two versions to unlock plenty of new features such as the original NES Metroid on GameCube via Link Cable or Unlock Fusion suit for Metroid Prime. This went even further with Animal Crossing. In Animal Crossing the Game Boy Advance's Remote Booting function was used to remotely load small applications into the Game Boy Advance's internal memory. Features like Animal Island allowed you to interact with some of the inhabitants while you were out and on the go. Obviously one of the biggest users of the GBA Link was The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords Adventures. In this adventure up to 4 people could battle it out on the main screen using their GBA's as controllers. Once they entered an underground (or out of site area) the players character would transfer to the GBA screen where they could continue playing in the cave with the other players continued on the main screen or in other caves. It was a great multiplayer experience allowing people to compete on a console without having to have "split screen" action. The only obvious problem with the model was you needed 4 GBAs.

The thing that is most surprising with the current round of consoles is this sort of game play with the DS and the Wii. The two consoles seem to be perfectly suited to it. The DS with a touch screen, mic and wifi connecting to the Wii for the rest of the game play.



It would be the idea way to have classic games like Cranium transfer to a console giving a new element to the Buzz phenomenon that sweeping Australia at the moment.

The Cranium Experiment

The main game board would be shown on the main screen via the Wii, a wireless link to the DS would allow the questions and answer to be pushed up for the player to read/answer. If you had a series of DS (ie one for each team) The touch screen could be used to input your answer for multiple choices questions. More involving mini games like the those in the "Creative Cat" section could lead the touch screen being used for a drawing interface. New/Update questions and challenges could be loaded via the WiiConnect24 interface and it could be an ever evolving game.
Think of something like a combination of Monopoly and WarioWare.

It seems to be a perfectly logical progression of both the Connectivity Push and the appeal to the non-gamer demographic. As yet, however, there has been no word of any connectivity between the two consoles.

Even for those of us who fit into the gamer demographic could benefit from download play on our DS pushed down from the WiiConnect24. Or imagine playing smash brothers with on your DS pushed out from your Wii while the whole battle plays out on the main screen. The possibilities seem to be as far and wide as those for the new Wiimote.

Will this be one of the next big secrets that Nintendo is keeping from us? Nothing seems to be far from possibility where rumours and the Wii are concerned. Let's face it they even havae a similar look right down to the colours of the Wiimotes on display at E3 and the release colours of the DS Lite


At the very least I'll be hoping for this one... There are already 2 DSs at my house and there will be a Wii when they get here.

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