Violin virtuoso plays a theme from Zelda Ocarina of Time

Unboxing Nintendo Wii Fit

Some two weeks ago, I got an SMS that my preordered Wii Fit balance board had arrived. Here are some pictures when unboxing the new thing:





An yes, just in case you might dought, I set a goal to lose some weigth that was nicely met this weekend...

Unboxing Wii Mario Kart

My children love playing Mario Kart on their Nintendo DS. Therefore buying them Wii Mario Kart was a no brainer. It will predictably be a hit with them. I preorder the game and an extra Wii Wheel at Game Mania and today I got an SMS alerting me it arrived. I was in the neighbourhood of the shop, so here are some unboxing pictures:




Official release of the game is foreseen for tomorrow 11 april 2008. Some predict shortages of Wii Mario Kart already. So if you consider buying the game, you better hurry to the shop.

New hype on Nintendo DS : Professor Layton

Professor Layton and the Curious Village is a game for the Nintendo DS handheld gameconsole:

I heard about it while I was in San Francisco for GDC. I was told that the game is a new hype on the DS. According to VGCharz it sold close to 1 million times. That accounts for the 45the place on the top sales list. Not yet very impressive but that may change rapidly.
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There happens to be a marketing campaing unleashed probably targetting, GDC and Wondercon attendees on top of, the San Francisco citizens. At the Chinese newyear parade around Union Square, Professor Layton's lookalikes drove around on Segways handing out cards advertising the game.

Professor Layton and the Curious Village
Originally uploaded by Steve Rhodes

On sidewalks around the Moscone center, several stickers advertised the game:



(See also: Gallery: Professor Layton Takes Over San Francisco)

The game is basically an animated story with a lot of casual puzzles. It's the mix of story telling and causal games that makes me interested in this genre. I guess it must not be that hard to extend such an approach to a transmedia experience with a television series as driver?

Spore comes to Nintendo Wii

I've just read an interview with Will Wright. He announces some marvelous news: his new game "Spore" will also be released on the Nintendo Wii in the second quater of 2008. Just to wet your saliva go and look to Spore on EA's 360° panofantastic display.

Also "Lego Star Wars" is coming to the Wii end of 2007. The online mode is reserved for Xbox 360 and PS3 only. And Guitar Hero 3 for Wii and ... I'm gone write that nice letter to Santa Claus soon!!!

From 2399 to 2400: more then 65 love games needed

My collegue aiming for the ultimate 2400 Nintendo Wii Tennis level has continued his quest and completed already 65 love games. He says he'll persist in the chase of 2400 fame until 140 love games. Stay tuned.

Nintendo DS evolves into smartphone for kids

As already mentioned in a previous post about the "Wiivolution" the Nintendo DS Lite gets Voice over IP. I means that if you are in a free hotspot with wireless internet, you can call somebody else for free. It's not yet official by Nintendo as Endgadget reports: Nintendo DS Lite gets VOIP.

From 2399 to 2400: more then 43 love games needed

The chap stryving for the ultimate 2400 Wii Tennis level has completed 43 love games. I somehow hoped for the jump to 2400 after 42 love games ;-). He says he'll persist in the chase of 2400 fame until 140 love games. Stay tuned.

If your Wii Tennis level is 2399, can you reach 2400 ?

A collegue reached a 2399 Wii Tennis level:


I wonder how much love games he has to play to reach 2400. If he will ever. To get from 2398 to 2399, 13 love games were needed. Already 24 love games with 2399 have been played. Stay tuned.

Absurd Nintendo Wii Tennis level ?

Since a few month, we have a Nintendo Wii installed in the coffee corner at work. Quite a lot of collegues play on it now and then. Francis is an avid user. Recently he reached a score of 2230 points in Wii Tennis. He's obviously has pro status. As you can see in the picture below, even Nintendo has not foreseen such high skills as the line runs into the title of the page!

Perhaps Francis should join Wiimbledom ?

Testing the Opera browser on Nintendo DS Lite

As I already mention in a previous post, the Nintendo DS Light (NDS Lite) will be able to do voice over ip (VOIP) as revealed in the article: Latest Pokemon titles morph DS into kid-friendly VoIP phone at Engadget. During my visit to the i-city event, I had some time to test out the Opera Browser for the Nintendo DS Lite. The Opera browser is a 45 euro package that consists out of the usual flash card that has to be inserted into the top slot where normal games are inserted and an extra card that has to be inserted into the front slot that contains extra memory:

Remark that the front slot is a different in a NDS and a NDS Lite. Check carefully for the right version when you would buy the browser.

My experiences using the Opera browser on the NDS Lite:
first of all, the DS lite Wifi connection only support WEP encryption. Since at home I'm using WPA, I could not test it at home. Setting up a Wifi connection is not childplay. In some cases indepth knowledge of the wifi router settings were necessary. This is not something to blaim Nintendo for, as setting up Wifi links is in general a difficult task. Probably only Apple will be able to solve this by using a RFID chip in every Wifi terminal (see their recent patent).
Second observation while browsing is that it's going slow. Something to be expected when you know that the DS Lite runs on a 67MHz ARM9 processor but I hoped more horsepower was made available in the extra front cartridge.
Third reading gmail on the DS Lite is possible although not very elegantly as Google does not support Opera's browser very well. Typing short emails is working fine and definitely an option.
Fourth, on the public hotspot of the local provider Telenet, authentication via username and password must be reentered after each session. Thus closing the DS lite and opening it again ment that the full username and password had to be entered again. I guess this has to do with Telenet infrastructure because I got a popup about a root certificate that could not be stored. I did not test Wifi in a open hotspot without authentication.
Fifth, during browsing it is not possible to play games. The top cartridge must be removed and browsing is then disabled. So no easy switching between reading mail and brain training...
To conclude, even in bright sunshine the screen stays readable. Kudos to Nintendo for this.

To conclude, the Opera browser for NDS Lite does not transform the game console into a functional handheld computer. To me, it looks more like a gimmick.