gerry

I think this thing is pretty cool. I would use it to log into my network and do admin work over rdp. not the most ideal set up but i could carry it with me everywhere and at 100 bucks who cares if it breaks? if can get in on the network and take care of user issues while i'm away from the office a few times it's already paid for itself. the media playback is a nice option to have too, although HD is out of the question a 7" screen is quite larger and i would imagine easier on the eyes than an iphone, i think it'd be great for plane trips. since it has no moving parts i bet battery life is pretty good too. yeah it's not a full blown machine but as a travel mate on vacation when you need to connect back to the office or do some quick WP i think it's fine. plus i bet you could flash the rom and install linux on it if you wanted too so that would open all kinds of other doors...

too ill!

re Apple switching to Intel, the way i read it was not becasue the new intel chips were better (closer to RISC) it was becasue they would be able to run Windows (it made boot camp and parrallels possible) in turn helping Mac adoption rates becasue if people freaked about Mac OS they could go back to Windows AND IBM was focusing on the console markets more than Apple's computer market. Apple would not have been a primary consumer of PPC and thus not get the attention they felt they deserved compare that with Intel being just tickled that they switched.
plus the lack of portable g5 for laptops only helped seal the switch.

nice piece but i think there's something missing and that would be the focus on software tools. case and point the current issues issues Epic's Unreal engine. sure the Wii hardware is lesser (to be frank) than the xbox or ps3 but the tools developers have available to them will make or break the look and performance of the game. 360 owners boast of a multi core system but the unreal engine has had continued problems tapping into that potential. what good is that v12 if it's only running on 6 cylinders? software, software software.
I'm telling you if some one created a bitchin Wii engine we could get some awesome looking games, I think even Nintendo has a little ways to go before they are really pumping things out to the best of Wii's ability.

i read this article and got this out of it. (feel free to correct me if i'm wrong i ahve been in the past so...) if games are ported stright over but do not specifically take advantage of Wii hardware (eg not translated for the differnet hardware poperly) the game will look like ass. if it is brought over properly it'll look pretty good. taken from here--
"Almost all the shader effects on PC, Xbox 360 and PS3 can be reproduced on the Wii by re-implementing them with the fixed function hardware of the Wii's GPU. Most games just port the effect over. A few teams have gone as far as making a shader-to-Wii conversion tool. It reads the shader code and generates the fixed function code necessary to achieve the same result. Keep in mind that the Wii's GPU is not as fast or feature rich as the Xbox 360 or PS3, but that doesn't mean you can't get very close results."

That being said I own a Wii and for the most part i'm a little bummed about the current selection of games. specifically I feel like i'm getting boned by lazy developers that aren't doing things properly to get the games to look the best they can on the Wii. For example the PSP vs Wii head to head screen shots for Alien Syndrome i've seen floating around make the Wii look like poop. yet the PSP is only supposed to be about as powerful as the PS2....what gives? are people being lazy or am i missing something and is my invesment just a poor one?

1 regardless if Zelda was a port or not the fact remains that it is a deep game, and it's played on the Wii

2 BW 2 is not out yet but my point was to illustrate that games can be deep for the system and that in the near future there will be more. so yeh to illustrate my point i can count it.

3 as for elebits IGN says "I think you're going to find hours of solid entertainment waiting here..."

so I don't even need to defend that it's not even my opinion, and i did say i haven't played it.

Alright just think I need to throw this out there, in case anyone forgot there are "deep" games for Wii aside from the quick fun games, Zelda for example, battalion wars will be also when it comes out, I hear elebits is also great although i have not played it. So yes some of the first wave of games are a bit gimicky (and fun i might add) just as they were on the DS, but things will get deeper and I don't think one needs more power to make a game "deep". I also liked the comment on the artistic aspect not being power based either, Viewtiful Joe and Killer 7 come to mind, even some old vector games are very artst (Tempest for example) perhaps he doesn't really mean "artistic" but rather the ability to make it "realistic" ?

we've all heard this before, remember DS vs PSP? Yes the DS is underpowered compared to PSP, but it has become a viable system, just as Wii will be. Plus it's cheap, as a result it's more attractive to a broader audience. I mean lets be honest here, the vast majority of the public does view video games a "fun toy" not as an art form. Nintendo is playing that perception and making things "quick fun". That's where games came from, remember arcades? Mr Hecker may be upset that Nintendo is bring games back to that but it's soemthing that has been lost by people taking themselves too seriously. It's kinda like music, everybody has that guilty pleasure pop song they love, there's nothing wrong with that, if it's fun and makes people happy they'll buy it. Sure "true artists" might rag on it but that's them and generally sepaking more people buy candy pop than cutting edge music.

oh nice aricle but i have yet to see the tg16 love! :-)
mine's still kickin with the super cd attachment (so many games left to buy for that too!)
and my NES still works if i blow on the carts

so anybody looking for NOS (new old stock) stuff should check out 4jays dot net. I've never ordered from them but the stuff they have on the site looks to be right up this alley.

looks like a wonky HD, my ipod does that sometimes, if i "drop" it though it comes back to life....my guess is the HD is on it's way out on both my ipod and that xbox. eventually they'll both have to be replaced.