raindog

The "only one touchscreen controller per system" thing will be the Wii U's version of "not really 1:1 control". It's an annoyance, it won't take too many sales away from the system, and it'll be corrected eventually in a not-completely-satisfying way, and for a price.

But I hope they correct it before release in some other way than saying "Buy our $249 handheld to use as a gimpy second controller". There are a lot of game concepts that would be made possible with 3 or 4 players each having their own screen, and as many of them are "blue ocean" as are "hardcore".

I assume the Wii U doesn't have the power to stream different video to two controllers simultaneously, let alone four, but not every user interface in every game has to involve full-screen, full-motion video.

@A Sandwich

And you prefer professional, non-garage-developed games like this one, right?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zGPEnsrCZJA

I've noticed the strangest thing coming out of big corporations lately: they're calling on other big corporations to show some solidarity and prevent their "value" from being diminished. I thought corporations were against collective bargaining. Certainly they're against acknowledging market realities.

I postponed preordering my 3DS so that I can upgrade to an Android phone in April. I'm already doing Android coding without having to rent physical space for my corporation or pay 2 grand for a devkit or even cracking anything, though I'll certainly be rooting my phone just as I always get a flash cart for Nintendo products. I buy computers to use them, and sometimes that means writing my own code. (But I don't code in my garage. Bad lighting.)

So if I do somehow come up with a great game, it's going to end up in the Android Marketplace, not 3DSware. Given that my non-contract projects over the last decade have been web toolkits and Atari 2600 games, it probably wouldn't be anything Nintendo would want anyway, since Gaijin already has the faux-retro thing covered. But we'll never know. I'll pick up a 3DS in time to play Ocarina 3D, because I personally like games that last more than a train ride. Then, if I can't at least find a way to run homebrew code, I'll resell it when I'm done playing that game, and maybe buy another one when Mario 3D comes out.

I did still preorder a 3DS, though... for my 10-year-old niece. 3D puppies and kittens are still worth $290 plus tax and shipping, apparently.

@CypherSignal
Anyone who's ever played Buzztime Trivia in a bar knows that it can be fun to play trivia games against strangers and try to make the national leaderboard. My GF and I played Buzztime twice this week alone, and last night we came in #40 and #86 nationally on one game.

But that's only available in bars. I wish that there were a game like that available for Xbox Live, because we'd play even more if we could (going out gets expensive). I was excited when I heard YDKJ would have online play. But the non-random episodes make it useless for online play, and I think they might as well have just left that part out. Also, a trivia game with only 700-800 questions is really kind of sad by most trivia game standards.

That said, even with just the two of us playing, it's still a bargain at $30, a steal at $20. We bought it in hopes that they'll produce more episodes and maybe even another sequel.

@BrokenTriforce
I have no intention of so much as connecting my 3DS to my access point or anyone else's, given their announcement of background-downloaded forced updates. If I can disable the wifi radio except for when I'm running my own software, I will.

As for the use of rooting it, there was never any Europe-only game that I imported for the DS, and I don't speak Japanese. I'm paying $249 for the potential of a Linux box with a tiny 3D screen. If it accidentally gets unrooted or goes too long without Linux or other interesting homebrew, I'll be ebaying it; I used my DS and a flash cart to listen to podcasts in the car until I got a phone that could handle them, and for an emergency SSH client. Before that, I used my GBA SP as a portable video player. When I buy a piece of computer equipment, I don't limit myself to the manufacturer's intended uses.

I'll still be getting one on launch day, explicitly for rooting purposes. Day one hardware is usually a lot more susceptible than subsequent iterations. No compelling day one software means I'll have a lot of fun for a couple days taking 3D pictures and won't be tempted to install any firmware updates for must-have games. A few weeks later it'll be rooted like every other device and I'll start writing my own code for it.

If they do something with Zelda like they did with Smash Bros. Brawl and include a firmware update that unroots it, it just means my copy will stay in its shrinkwrapped box forever and I'll be playing a pirated, de-malwared copy of Zelda instead of the real thing.

@Epoque: It's probably an age thing, but as Marble Madness ripoffs go, I really thought Hamsterball was a lot better than Marble Blast, enough to pay for it. If Marble Madness had never existed, maybe I'd like Marble Blast more. I still may get MB on XBLA, but only because Hamsterball's developer went with a PS3 and I went with a 360.

@xxxsam I know it's possible to replace the battery. I've downloaded Youtube how-to videos on the subject. Just not much of a hardware guy, and there are free compositional tools now that make my m1 much more valuable as a MIDI controller than as a workstation.

I've bought most of these games many times over, but I'm glad I never got around to buying Namco Museum Remix. This time, I might give it a try, but as with most of Namco's releases in the last decade, it just seems really... stingy. Fine, don't acknowledge the existence of MAME, but following a model more like Intellivision's, with 30 or more games per re-release, seems more appropriate after 30 years.

They invented the Happy Meal when I was 10 and Donkey Kong was released when I was 12, so nope, I don't remember that. I guess 30 is the average game blogger age at this point...

I got all misty-eyed at that 3D arcade walkthrough video someone did a few years back, though, with a Styx song as the soundtrack, even though I don't like Styx, so I guess I know how you guys feel.