Nintendo has rolled out a small update for the Nintendo Wii. The update mostly involves cosmetic changes along with more preparation for the DSi’s release.
NeoGAF member Cheesemeister was kind enough to post a translation of the update’s changelog. Check it out below.
- Wii Points will soon be called Nintendo Points, and all references as such will be updated. All other functionality with Nintendo Points will remain the same.
- The controller usage explanation screen will be updated.
- The controller usage explanation screen will be separated from the buy screen. Along with this, the user will be prompted to confirm that they have any necessary accessories before being able to press the Purchase button.
- The design of the icons displayed will be updated.
We haven’t heard anything yet on how this update affects the Homebrew Channel. If you want to keep enjoying ‘brew on your Wii, it would probably be superior if you don’t update yet.
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Via [wii.qj.net]
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Wiibrew dev Eikon has ported the Palm OS turn-based strategy game Dope Wars to the Nintendo Wii console. Now Wii owners can point and click their way to some hefty drug profits thanks to DopeWars Wii v1.0.
If you haven’t tried out any of the many Dope Wars ports yet, the objective in this game is to make as much money as possible within a limited time frame by selling drugs.
Here’s a list of features included in of DopeWars Wii v1.0:
- Graphical interface with capability for skins (future version)
- Jet to six different locations around New York City
- Manage your money at the Bank, and pay off your debts at the Loan Shark
- Buy a gun or shotgun to defend against the police
- Deal eight different drugs, ranging from marijuana to cocaine to peyote
- Over twenty random events to keep things interesting
- High score system
- Retro terminal style graphics to preserve classic feel
Download: DopeWars Wii v1.0
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Via [wii.qj.net]
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The Entertainment Software Association recently reported that over 40 percent of gamers today are women. A respectable figure and one warranting a closer look at the industry to see how it s reacting to the burgeoning feme-gamer market.
Electronic Entertainment Design and Research (EEDAR) did some poking around and noted that over 50 percent of games across most genres grant for players to select a female avatar.
What does this mean? It means that most game developers are finding it worth spending a little bit more of their time and money to ensure that not just the boys are happy with their avatars. Female representation in video games is now nearly a virtual necessity if one doesn’t want to alienate half the gamer market.
Music and Rhythm games topped the list with 92 percent and Shooters predictably bottomed out at 18 percent.
RPGs, in theory, should have gotten some the one of the highest scores since character customization tends to be pretty important regardless of the gender of the player. Not so. It was 4th. I blame JRPGs, which are usually more linear than their western counterparts.
I guess they figure that they don’t need to give gamers the choice of gender since few can really tell if their protagonists are male or female anyway. (yes, yes, I know I’m not being fair, but I still haven’t forgiven them for Vaan.)
Among consoles, the Wii scored top marks with 51 percent of its games allowing for selectable female avatars (not really surprising because of the Miis). The Xbox and PS3 were roughly the same, scoring about 38 percent apiece.
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Via [wii.qj.net]
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Users of the Wii-Linux project might want to take a look at this new release from dev nuvalo.
It’s an initial solution to the errors with the XF86 video driver of Wii-Linux, and now supports 640
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Music games have become more popular than sports games - this is based on the findings of market researcher Odyssey. According to Nick Donatiello, president and chief executive of Odyssey, music simulation titles such as Rock Band and Guitar Hero have driven an explosion of growth in the category, with Rock Band 2 (PS3, Xbox 360, Wii) debuting at #3 on the list of the top US games in September.
Odyssey found that 65 of gamers play action games. This is followed by music games with 58 , and 50 for sports games. The relatively new category is already on its way to the top.
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Even though one might think him a touch hypocritical for saying so, EA CEO John Riccitiello spoke to Gamasutra about how prioritizing profits should be avoided by game publishers.
This is something he admitted that EA had to struggle with in recent years but is working to correct such self-destructive behavior. It would otherwise be the beginning of the end, he explained.
The problem is that the quickest way to increase profits is to cut research and development so that a given company can see a nice spike in their numbers within a 24-month period. Such increased profitability will naturally improve their image in the financial market so there’s an obvious attraction to this route that Riccitiello describes as a drug in and of itself.
A lot of
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It’s been a year since we last ground unlikely-looking rails in Tony’s popular skateboarding franchise, which does kind of build the expectation that something new would, or at least should, be added. Activision did promise that this “won’t be your father’s Tony Hawk,” after all.
Among the numerous marketing leak rumors we might have already heard about is the idea that the next Tony Hawk game will be coming with a skateboard peripheral.
Analyst Doug Creutz of Cowan and Company throws in his two cents and declares the rumor to be “highly likely,” given the big success of such peripheral bundled games like Guitar Hero #@ !4
5#@ ! (Xbox 360, Wii, Computer, PlayStation 3) and Rock Band (Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Wii).
In a note to investors, Creutz writes,
“We also view it as highly likely that the game will include some sort of skateboard peripheral with all SKUs when it ships, given the huge success (and higher price points and profitability) of Activision Blizzard’s Guitar Hero franchise.”
Since the technology for a pressure-sensitive board-like controller already successfully broke into the market via the Wii Fit‘s balance board, there shouldn’t really be any reason to think Activision won’t try something similar of their own. We should find out for sure some time in 2009 when the game is slated to come out.
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FlipEm v0.1 is a “fun tiny puzzle to work out,” says Wii brew developer Yossi. All you have to do is try to get all the squares on the board to have an X in them. Here’s the mechanics of the game:
When a square is flipped, it gets an X if it was empty, or clears out the X if there was already one there. When you click a square, it and the four around it in a shape get flipped. Squares off the edge of the board are ignored.
As this is the first release, issues are to be expected. For this one, there’s the problem on random crashes. Unfortunately, Yossi still has yet to figure out what causes it, and so therefore cannot fix it yet. He does encourage you folks, however, to try see for yourself what could be the problem so he can get on the quickfix ASAP. You’ll be given due credit for it.
Download: FlipEm v0.1
Via [wii.qj.net]
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Gabe Newell, managing director of Valve, has made a lot eyebrow-raising comments through the years, more particularly the ones about his stand on console game development. Here’s his latest quote from the Game Informer:
It seems by and massive that gamers are incredibly smart; the average gamer seems to know more about what makes a good game than the average person at a publisher.
It’s true - gamers are smart. In many ways, no one really knows what a gamer wants out of a game superior than a gamer. Haven’t we all gone, “It’d be superior if…” at some point while playing? Whether it’s a bad camera angle, crappy in-game dialogue, or unreasonably hard-to-get items, we all have our ideas as to how to improve a game.
It’s nice to see Gabe Newell recognizing gamer intellect - especially since he’s a publisher (being a gamer too sure helps). He ought to use that recognition more when bashing consoles, though.
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Here’s another old-school homebrew game for the Nintendo Wii. This one’s from Bubble-07 and is called Particle Accelerator.
The objective here’s to keep dodging the randomly-generated particles you see on-screen. Like I said, it’s very old-school and has only black and white graphics. Give it a spin, though.
You can play it by turning the Wiimote on its side and using the up and down buttons to dodge.
Particle Accelerator’s source code is included in the download, so if you wanna tweak it or anything, check it out. This homebrew game was written in C.
Download: Particle Accelerator v1.0
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