Nintendo Releasing Wireless Router for Revolution 290
nmaster64 writes "Nintendo is really pushing their Nintendo Wi-fi hard, completely reversing the anti-online mentality they've held in years past. Nwizard.com reports, "Nintendo will soon be producing a router that will allow access to the Nintendo Wi-Fi Network on both the DS and the Revolution. The router plugs into a USB 2.0 port and transfers your computers internet connection wirelessly into your next-gen Nintendo devices." It should be noted this story came at almost the same time as Sony announced they dropped the PS3's router functionality." Update: 07/13 06:20 GMT by Z : Please note there is no source referenced for this "story", and this could in fact be some guy's pet theory.
Router? (Score:5, Insightful)
Wouldn't you just buy a router dedicated to handle both connections sepratley? They are not that expensive these days.
Game console requires a PC? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Let me get this straight... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Nintendo back on top? (Score:5, Insightful)
Nintendo was always relevant. Sure their sales were never as big as Xbox or PS2, but Nintendo had a great niche market that generated good revenue. They didn't need huge sales numbers. Nintendo has always made quality games and always been part of a niche market.
This wireless will only add value to an already great, present, niche market. They know what they are doing.
Re:WiFi for consoles makes sense (Score:5, Insightful)
Probably because they can't deliver what they've promised, just like with the PSX and the PS2: a mouthfull of hype and buzz, but in the end half of the features are pulled, and the performance is nowhere near the initial announcements (remember how the PS2 would be '100 times faster than any PC on the market' at the time it would be launched. See the PS3/Cell buzz right now...
Nintendo however not only 'reverses the anti-online mentality' but also reverses Sony's marketing practices: stay silent and keep your feature set undisclosed until its really sure what the final product will be like, this way not disappointing their future customers.
Still Sony seems to be winning over Nintendo... Which IMO is a pity, not only hardware-wise but also software-wise...
Nintendo's marketing strategy (Score:5, Insightful)
Hmm (Score:5, Insightful)
The Genesis, NES, and TurboGraphx16 werent online (well, the Genesis was with XBand eventually), and some of the most innovative, playable games were released on those 3 platforms.
Super Mario Bros 3, Earthworm Jim, the original Metal Gear, Final Fantasy - a long laundry list of original titles.
Here we are now in the wireless age and I cant count how many shooter titles are on the Xbox, or generic RPG titles are available on the PS2. The GC clearly still holds rank with gameplay innovation, but interestingly they sit 3rd overall in the worldwide console battle.
Its kind of sad, really. The market seems to be more concerned with whether or not I can get on the net with yet ANOTHER device, instead of making games compelling enough for me to WANT to get online with it.
Since when is Nintendo anti-online? (Score:5, Insightful)
Since when did Nintendo have an anti-online mentality? All I have ever read Nintendo executives say is that the market was not ready and would only be ready at the tail end of the GameCube's lifecycle, so it didn't make financial sense for them to go out of their way to support it on the GC.
So far I'd say they were pretty accurate. The XBox Live subscription level is about 2.5% of the worldwide sales; 350,000 subscribers out of 13.7 mil sales. Those numbers are from 2003 and late 2004 respectively. The fact that Microsoft hasn't published their subscription level for XBox Live since 2003 is pretty telling that they are in the very situation that Nintendo did not want to be in. They brought a product to market before the market was ready. It was just successful enough that it is going to be a pain to support, yet it isn't successful enough to be cost effective.
Re:It should also be noted... (Score:3, Insightful)
No point? It was a contrasting statement. I did not know that Sony had made that decision, as much I as I did not know about Nintendo's plans for this "router." (bridge). I found it interesting that these two console manufacturers are seemingly choosing different strategies. I did not see an implication in the summary that one decision lead to or affected the other.
But, how do you know that there is no connection whatsoever? You know this? If I were a marketing guy at Nintendo, and I had been planning to announce this funcionality on a certain date, then found out that a competitor had just announced something related--and indeed opposite--my company's strategy, I would make the announcement sooner. I'm not saying that's what happened here, but it is certainly plausible and for that reason... "It should be noted"
Re:The downfall of Nintendo (Score:5, Insightful)
Also, while gaming in general began to market heavily towards the teenage male demographic with games involving gore, violence, and less clothing, Nintendo generally just kept making the games they wanted to make, and with Mario and the like they took on the aura of "kiddie games."
With all of that, Nintendo's marketshare has dropped significantly, and Sony and MS have become major players. In my opinion, however, Nintendo's games are generally just as high quality as they ever were. And they're definitely the most innovative of the big three.
Halo made the Xbox, no argument there. The PS2 is not riding high on the coattails of Katamari Damacy, its real killer app was GTA3, although it already had plenty of market share by that point.
*shrug* It's my anecdotal evidence vs yours at this point, but I thought the gamecube Mario Kart was a real improvement over the N64 version. I have all three of the current consoles, with a similar number of games for each, and the gamecube easily sees the most play. Not to mention that, except for Burnout3 on the Xbox, I can't get my girlfriend to play anything other than the gamecube.
I hope Nintendo keeps doing what they've been doing(with a few minor exceptions maybe). And hopefully as the gaming community continues to mature, more people will rediscover how Nintendo does a good job of making fun games.
Re:Let me get this straight... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:WiFi for consoles makes sense (Score:5, Insightful)
That's because they are not removing the WiFi from the PS3. They are removing the
Originally it was supposed to have 3 extra Gbit ethernet connections on the back allowing you to use the PS3 as a networking router. I guess they came to their senses and figured out that no-one wants a console to be a router when a dedicated router which is quiet is dirt cheap.
Re:Let me get this straight... (Score:3, Insightful)
>God forbid Nintendo offer us any choices.
How is it offering ONLY Wi-Fi a choice, and offering only ethernet NOT a choice?
Re:WiFi for consoles makes sense (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:The downfall of Nintendo (Score:3, Insightful)
He's not. Hiroshi Yamauchi [n-sider.com], Nintendo's president since the late 40's, retired in 2002, nearly a year after the GameCube went to market. His successor, Satoru Iwata [n-sider.com], is taking the company in a new, distinct direction as evidenced by the Nintendo DS, among other things. Under his lead, Nintendo has become more accepting of current technology standards. The DS has adopted 802.11 WiFi technology and will use SD memory cards in its media expansion. The Revolution will also use typical WiFi standards, as well as supporting DVDs, SD flash memory, and USB. As a longtime video game fan, Iwata seems to be much more in touch with what gamers want, and he has claimed to be committed to pleasing hardcore as well as new gamers.
Most journalists have been fairly impressed with the way Iwata has handled the company. He's already beginning to take steps that Yamauchi would never have taken, like the Revolution's backward compatibility, which is clearly designed for fan service rather than profit. Iwata has also been working with many third parties in order to win back the support that Nintendo lost in the N64 generation. We'll see how things go, but under his leadership, the Revolution could be the most exciting Nintendo console since the NES.
Re:Tip for Nintendo (Score:4, Insightful)
Oh come on. Are you serious? Every time I hear someone scream out for some company to release something as open source and it would be an automatic bonus in terms of usage base I'm reminded of the same people that call for Ogg Vorbis support in the iPod. Who really cares? If Nintendo released the Gamecube OS or Revolution OS as open source, then maybe a dozen geeks would actually do something with it. And that's it. Maybe you're forgetting that Nintendo is all about gaming, and some geek that can compile the Revolution OS is not going to be making a game that will make any money.
The effect would certainly not be "huge", as you said.
1. release as open source
2. ???
3. profit!
No, no, no, no... no. (Score:5, Insightful)
The Nintendo DS uses 802.11. This USB wirelessy thing is almost certainly going to just be a totally normal 802.11 router, just it plugs into USB instead of sitting between your modem and computer the way a Netgear would.
You have probably heard that Nintendo has some kind of "propreitary wi-fi protocol". This is true. However this protocol is used for DS to DS multiplayer. Like, if you have two DSes in a room. This "propreitary" protocol will also, as you note, probably be used to connect the DS to the Revolution.
However, when the DS needs to go onto the internet-- i.e. when you buy one of the online-enabled games such as Animal Crossing or Mario Kart coming later this year-- it switches to 802.11 TCP/IP.
I think we can completely assume that the Revolution will work the same way.
Re:Let me get this straight... (Score:3, Insightful)
And for the record, wireless routers go for less than $50 nowadays. I just took a look on newegg and you can get a netgear 802.11b for $15.99 after mail-in rebate. So much for "$100 - $200".
Re:The downfall of Nintendo (Score:4, Insightful)
First of all, most others would not say their last major success was the N64, they would say it was the beginning of the downfall. Sure, it was their first 3D console, but as an earlier poster said, they made a lot of 3rd parties mad by using cartridges, which also limited textures and such because of the limited memory of the cartridges.
You say the GCN has a clunky shape, but it seems to me that I can place it anywhere near my TV without it looking out of place. If I have an extra 6-8 inches on the side of my TV, I can put it there. DVD functionality should matter not these days. I just bought a DVD player better than both PS2 and Xbox for $30.
Xbox has its various Halos. You mean both 1 & 2? Is that all the good games it has? PS2 has Katamari Damacy, and GCN has no quirky games like this? No Wario Ware? No Super Monkey Ball? No Pikmin? And it's blasphemy to say that MK64 is better than MK:DD. The graphics and framerate are so bad in MK64 that it's nearly unplayable. I'd much rather play the original Mario Kart with sprites in Mode7 than play with 2D sprite characters in a 3D world.
And where exactly is the problem with mini-DVD discs, as you call them? The only problem I see is that it deters pirates, not only because of the smaller disc size (which you can probably buy nowadays), but also because the track is written and read from outside-in, not like normal CDs/DVDs which are read inside-out.
Re:The downfall of Nintendo (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Windows only? (Score:4, Insightful)
Somehow I get the feeling that Nintendo is going to try to avoid making it a prerequisite that you own and use a product sold by one of their competitors in the console market.
Misconceptions (Score:2, Insightful)
Nintendo has stated many times that a DS will be able to "play online at any wireless hotspot around the world". This USB adaptor is not because the DS or Revolution will only connect to it, it's because...
Nintendo wants stuff to be easy. Your girlfriend (yeah, right) wants to play Animal Crossing DS online, but doesnt know shit about computers, thats why she lets you hang around. Say youre out of town and she she wants to set this up. The process:
1) Buy Nintendo USB adaptor
2) Plug it in to a computer
3) Play Animal Crossing DS online
It is cheap and thoughtlessly easy, and that is how it should be. For the rest of us, we can use our existing WAPs and not have to bother with this.