Nintendo World Report

Mailbag: Your Questions Answered

Digg this article

Neither Rain, sleet, snow, hail nor throbbing headaches will prevent the delivery of another NWR mailbag update!

---

Hi,

love the site, keep up the work! I am a smalltime collector of original NES "gear" and I have both a NES Advantage, and an NES Max that I play my NES games on my original NES. Will these, as well as other variations of the NES controller, work on the RetroPort? The NES advantage has 2 plugs, yet only one needs to be plugged in at a time

- scott
virginia

I talked with Aaron, who reviewed the RetroPort. Here's what he had to say:

"As far as I know, that should work. I could double-check, but they do already sell a USB-adapted NES Advantage. Their site says it works with all standard controllers including the Max, but not with other types of peripherals like the Zapper."

So there you have it. The NES Advantage is really just two controllers in one device, so if you use one adapter for player 1 and one for player 2, the game probably won't know the difference. You don't even need to plug in both ports for the Advantage to work (like you said), so you don't need to get a second one if you don't want.

---

Quoted from last mailbag:

"Thanks for the helpful informa--hey, you're a Mac user, aren't you? Well, let me tell you about a little piece of software called "Windows is Better than Any Apple OS Because all the Big Games and Programs are Developed and Released for Windows Because Macs Suck." Oh, what's that? You can't run it on your Mac? Poor baby."

You do realize that the newest line of Apple computers can be set up with a dual boot configuration that allows you to boot into either OS X or Windows Xp, right? Have fun with your spyware and viruses. :P

Anyway, I also have an actual question. Any idea why Nintendo doesn't release a virtual console release schedule a day or two in advance? It'd be nice to know if something good is coming up a few days in advance so I could poke a few dollars away before my paycheck goes in bills, food, and movies.

- Magic Ceiling Fan
Canada

Nintendo has issued early details on Virtual Console releases a few times previously, but generally it looks like Nintendo is happy to surprise us on Mondays. It would be nice if they let everyone know on Fridays, since that would give us time to prepare for our weekly Virtual Console Mondays news feature. I get the feeling they don't want to let the games slip beforehand in case there's an issue with a game not being ready for posting after they've already announced it. Dungeon Explorer was one such case, as it was supposed to come out two weeks ago. It got pushed back to last Monday because of emulation issues. You can't be too careful about "lying" to your audience about release dates, I suppose.

Oh, and the reason why Intel Macs can run Windows with Boot Camp is because Macs need a real OS like Windows to make them more viable in the marketplace. Wouldn't you want a sexy Apple computer to be running a dominate operating system? Mac users would, that's for sure!

---

1. Do you think there's any chance the VC will ever support PC games like the old adventure titles by LucasArts (Loom, Monkey Island Series, Full Throttle, etc.)? They would work perfectly with the Wii and I doubt they'd be hard to emulate (Mouse > Pointer, R&L; Clicks > A&B;). They might even re-boot their respective franchises... who knows?

2. Could/will Nintendo include firmware/system updates in future games? Jg233's question in your last mailbag got me thinking about ways Nintendo could distribute updates to those who are regrettably offline.

3. Do you have any idea how a Mii is stored in system memory? I'm kind of worried that Miis will be ignored by all but a few of Nintendo's games, if only because it would be kind of weird to have a Mii show up in more realistic games - Madden being a good example.

My hope is that Miis are stored as a simple XML-type file with attributes like hair, eyes, mouth, etc. This way 3rd parties could create equivalents to match their game's visual style; kind of like CSS for people.

Sorry for the loaded questions, but I know you guys can handle it.

- Captain N
Columbus, OH

1. Those games and others like it are a part of what is known as the SCUMM Lucas Arts games. SCUMM is the engine/programming hybrid that LA used to make them, as well as some of my other favorites such as Indiana Jones: The Last Crusade and the original Sam & Max. Anyhoo, I would very much like to see them come to the Virtual Console, but it may be tricky going to get the rights to do it. The games were released on a variety of systems, but mostly the Amiga and PC. The first thing Nintendo would need to do if they wanted to get these Lucas Arts classics on VC is to probably get an Amiga emulator working for the Wiimote (or the open-source ScummVM), and then work out the licensing issues after that. I hope it'll happen!

2. Probably. I believe Microsoft slips updates in games from time to time, and I know Sony does it with PSP UMDs. In both those cases, the updates only come with first-party software. Even if you distribute updates through certain games, there's still no guarantee that people will buy games with firmware updates. That's highly unlikely if firmware updates come with every Nintendo game, but still, the scenario would exist.

3. I wouldn't know that! However Mii data is stored, it's pretty small to be able to store 10 Miis on a scant 8KB or so of reported Wiimote internal memory. The Wii is certainly capable of displaying Mii characters in games (Wii Sports), so really it boils down towhether or not Nintendo will allow other developers to peek into the depths of the system memory and give them the ability to display Miis in their own games. I said this a few mailbags ago, but there's also the possibility of games displaying create-a-character characters that look similar to your Mii. That would be nice, but until we see games that use this feature, or any other third-party use of Miis in-game, we just won't know how much flexibility Nintendo put into the Mii Channel.

---

Hey there

Aplopgies if the answer to this question is stupidly simple...

I have heard talk that the Wii has "play history" built in. Now, I am aware that each day when you play, a message appears on the message board showing you how long you have played each game that day. However, does the console store, and can it show you how long overall you have spent on each game???

Zelda runs a nice counter on the save select screen, and I like knowing how much time I have got for my money! Any chance I can find just how much time I have wasted, sorry, enjoyed, Wii Sports?

Cheers guys!

- Wii-Jim

Play History doesn't give you a way of showing you how much time you've put into a game overall. That sucks a lot, because I've lost track of how much I've played Wii Sports and would also like to know. I don't want to add things up day-by-day to do it, either.

Developers could help out with that and make sure to always have something that shows the total time played in the game, either on a stats page or on a save file. We want to know this stuff!

---

I've looked all over for a Wii remote FAQ, but all I can find are pre-release things, with questions like "how big is it?", "do I need to use the sensor bar?", etc.

I have a couple of questions about our beloved Wiimotes that I'd like answered, but mainly, I'd like to see the questions other people are asking.

As the guy who just discovered the flashing LED battery meter two weeks ago, I'm a little behind, so help me out a little.

My main thing is that I want someone to explain to me how the Wii assigns controller numbers. All my remotes have different-colored gloves on them, so they're easily distinguishable. Sometimes I grab the black remote and press A on the startup screen and it's #1, but sometimes it's not. Sometimes the green remote is #1, and no matter what I do, I can't bump it from that position. What if the green remote's batteries are dying? Wouldn't it be easier to grab a different remote than to change the batteries *right now*? Wii sports can be played with any numbered remote, but many games cannot (Elebits comes to mind).

Anyone care to explain this to me?

Tell Dave I said hi.

- ignavia
South Louisiana

With my experiences with the Wii, each system remembers which remotes are synced up to it, but doesn't assign specific controller numbers to any of them. When you turn a system on with a remote, that remote is always player 1. At least, it should be. Other controllers fill in slots 2, 3 and 4 as they are activated. If you want your color-coded controllers to always be the in the same player order at startup, then they should be activated in the same order every time.

The Wii remote options menu has a way to re-order the controllers in the way you want, though. If you open the Home menu and select controller options at the bottom of the screen, you can disconnect the remotes. After you do, just press 1 and 2 on the remote you want to be player 1, then after that syncs up, do the same for the other controllers in the order of your choosing. You don't have to be stuck with a player order you don't want!

---

Now that Wii sales figures are coming in for the holiday period, I was just wondering how they compared to the Gamecube sales during it's first holiday period back in 2001?

- Jim

If the throbbing headache I am currently experiencing isn't clouding my memory, I think Nintendo pumped out somewhere between 1 and 1.5 million GameCubes worldwide before the end of 2001. Looking back through Nintendo's financial statements, they shipped 3.8 million through the March after launch. Of course, Europe didn't join the party until May, so those numbers were just for Japan and North America. Contrast that with the 4 million Wiis Nintendo wanted to sell before the new year, and the six million they're gunning for by March. Even with the added numbers for Europe, Australia and elsewhere, Nintendo is still way ahead in sales compared to the GameCube.

In terms of where Nintendo stands in the overall game industry, they're looking even better. About this time five years ago, the PS2 was the market leader with 30 million systems sold worldwide. The GameCube only had about 4 million. If Nintendo hits their target of 6 million Wiis, that'll be compared to the market-leading Xbox 360, which by then will have sold 11 or 12 million globally. That's pretty good, I must say.

---

I've finally gotten around to unpacking some moving boxes that havent been touch in a long, long time; and inside one of them I found some of my GBA and GBA SP stuff. But one thing puzzles me the most. I found a five foot cable that has almost a USB looking ends and stamped into the plastic it says: Nintendo DMG-04.

I've tried all the Gameboys I have and none fit the cable. I dont think it goes to a Gamecube or N64 (And the Wii wont be back in stock in this area until late Feb if lucky). Does anyone at NWR have this type of cable, or have any clue as to which system it belongs?

- The Raptor Red
Ashtabula, Ohio

DMG is the three-letter code designation for the one and only original Game Boy. Yep, the four-color monochrome cabbage-screened portable that shipped with Tetris is the thing you'll need if you want to use part number DMG-04. Actually, you'll need two, since #04 is the Game Boy link cable. Back in those days, both players actually needed a copy of the game to do multiplayer. Talk about ancient times!

For the curious, "DMG" is short for "Dot Matrix Game," referencing the dot matrix display used on the original Game Boy screen. Nintendo likes to use old system names to refer to part numbers for newer systems. The Wii, for instance, is RVL-001, which obviously refers to the system's former codename, Revolution. DS is NTR-001 for Nitro, the N64 is NUS-001 for Nintendo Ultra 64 (Sixtyfour), and the GameCube is DOL-001 for Dolphin.

---

Have you heard of the cannon room glitch in Twilight Princess? Well I hadn't until I was 55 hours into the game and it happened to me. I called Nintendo and their response was that they are aware of the problem, but I should start over from the beginning. Do you think it is likely that Nintendo could fix this with a patch?

-Nick

- nicktv
Cape Girardeau, mo

The cannon room save bug, for those not aware of it, occurs when you save your game of Twilight Princess at a certain point that won't let you progress on through the game when you reload it. One of the NPCs Link needs to talk to to continue the game won't show up after that, meaning you're stuck. There's another bug like this that can occur if you cross a certain bridge that gets destroyed after you cross it, then save and reload the game from there. You'll restart on the wrong side of the bridge and won't be able to continue on with the game. Both of those happen pretty far into the adventure, and it totally sucks if you need to start over from the beginning after all of that work.

I don't know if Nintendo can patch something like that. It depends on whether or not the Wii can do downloadable content, and more importantly for Zelda, whether or not the game supports it. The reason why all Xbox 360 games can be updated is because it's a feature of the system, and all games take advantage of it. Even if the Wii does allow for game-specific content to be downloaded, if Twilight Princess has no way of accessing it, how can it fix the problems? I'm sorry to tell you that your only option here may be to start over from the beginning.

There are a surprising number of obvious bugs in Twilight Princess. I've heard of another one on top of the two game stoppers (wacky Link shadows). Three is a lot by Nintendo's standards, which tells me they were pushing really, really hard to get this game out for the Wii launch. That also may be why Nintendo waited a month to ship the GameCube version.

You know, you could switch over to the GC game to make the first 55 hours of the game fresh. Just suggesting.

---

How many Wii's can Nintendo produce in a week? When will there consistently be stock in stores so I can just walk in any time of the day and pick one up?

- wizard79

Well, let's see. If Nintendo said they wanted to sell four million Wiis by the end of 2006, and six million total by the end of March, that means they have the capacity to make two million in three months. Three months is 12 weeks, and two million divided by 12 is somewhere between 160k~170k per week. To answer the second part of the question, you'll be able to walk in to any store to buy a Wii when less than 160k~170k people want a Wii every week. I'm guessing that won't happen for a while.

---

Do you think Nintendo will ever release a better "sensor bar"? The homemade ones with brighter LEDs provide greater accuracy and work from farther away. A 3rd party needs to cash in on this at the very least. And make the Sensor bar come out directly out of a plug maybe too for those who need such setups. Well anyways, yeah. I don't like how as you get farther, the Wii remote doesn't seem to work as well (at least in the Wii interface). Up close you can rotate your controller to rotate your finger and it works fine, but farther away it starts going all weird. Can firmware updates fix this (like compensating for the lack of detection to make the pointer steadier)?

- thepoga
Irvine

The sensor bar you have is going to have to do unless you opt for a third party bar. Nyko is coming out with a wireless sensor bar, and others will probably offer more options in the future. Nintendo recommends you go no further than 10 feet away when pointing at the remote at the screen, so as long as you have no blaring interfering light sources in the way, that should be adequate for anyone.

---

The mailbag is over, and not a moment too soon. My head is about to explode! I'm going to take two aspirin and call my doctor in the morning. If you want me to feel better in time for next week's mailbag update, send in some questions! The mailbag submission form is below. We've also finally managed to get Talkback working for the mailbag, so you can head over to the NWR forums and leave feedback for this week's update.

See you next week.