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New Nintendo Hardware Announced
Xs writes "SPOnG.com has an article on two new pieces of hardware coming out of Nintendo today. One of which is a new e-Reader, the e-Reader Plus, that can store data while the GBA is off. And the other is a Gamecube memory card that can read Panasonic SD generic media storage cards. Not only does this increase the maximum storage capacity per Gamecube slot, but this also opens up the ability to trade save game files online via a PC!" I've yet to buy an e-Reader, and this makes me think I should hold off for a while longer.
When the GC came out, Nintendo said that they would eventually have an SD card reader. I'm supprised that it took this long for it to come out, but hey its all good, right?
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that eReader plus is huge.... wow... it's like twice the size of the GBA.
...but the E-Reader still just doesn't look like anything but a complete gimmick to me. I can understand kids going gaga for it, 'cause it's like trading cards and what not, but I haven't seen anything actually interesting and usable come out of it. Putting old NES games out in E-Reader format is pretty cool, but in practice it's horrendously tiresome. That, and the E-Reader is a bulky, ugly looking thing hanging off the top of the GBA.
Now, the Game Boy Player...that I'm waiting for. If Metroid, Mario Sunshine, and Zelda didn't get me to get a GameCube already, that certainly would've tipped the balance. Can't wait to play Golden Sun and Circle of the Moon with a real controller.
The SD reader is pretty pointless if they haven't figured out how to get beyond the 127 file limit. It's a problem with the 64Mb cards and it'll be even worse with a larger SD card.
One of the problems with large memory GC cards at the moment is that they're still limited to 128 save files. Presumably the file system such as it is has a fixed size FAT of some kind, which would explain why the MC59 and MC251 are both 5 blocks short of a power of 2 - presumably the FAT is 5 blocks.
Now, the real question is whether that just happens to be how all the memory cards so far have worked (including 3rd party ones with over 1000 blocks) or whether it's something which is hard-coded into the GameCube itself.
One possibility is that it's hard-coded, but the SD adapter comes with a way of selecting which virtual memory card to show to the rest of the Cube, much as some 3rd party PlayStation memory cards did.
It'll be interesting to see how games use large amounts of space though - I'd imagine that few games would wish to alienate those still using MC59/MC251 by storing thousand-block files, for instance... and if games *don't* use it, the SD adapter becomes limited in its use. My MC251 is still only half full, despite a reasonable collection of games.
The North American e-Reader was changed when brought overseas. Originally, the Japanese version didn't have link cable support, program storage, full voice on menus, or NES emulator (which is on the hardware itself in North America). This product is only a Japanese version, upgrading the product to the new features.
but this also opens up the ability to trade save game files online via a PC
The Playstation 2 has a similair device available for it, a 'Sharkport' (though a quick Google seems to reveal that they've renamed it to an 'Xport'). Taking the save files from the cartridge, it turns them into small-ish binary (200kb) files that can be transferred over the net, and stored for backups.
But there is a much more interesting thing you can do with them, assuming the Gamecube Panasonic Media Storage Card is at least similar in operation. Opening up the save files in a hex-editor and editing what you find does allow cheating and manipulatipn of the game that would normally be impossible. I've seen some hacked PS2 saves do things which not even a memory editor like an Action Replay/Gameshark was capable of. E.g. In 'Soul Reaver 2', the game would save the name and location of a dropped weapon in the save file, a little hex editing lets the player change the weapon to anything, any model stored in the games data, from a background scenery model to the last boss.
Unless the gamecube savefiles are encoded in some way that makes editing hex variables difficult ((say for example some form of compression (I'd liken it as trying to hex edit a *.ZIP file to change one of the files inside accurately)), Gamecube owners might want to get excited about the new cheating and manipulating potential for their games. I can say that, at least in the case of PS2 games, it does increase their lastability.
I bought this thing, hoping that it would get better as it has gone along - and it hasn't. While the prospect of playing old NES games by swiping cards is a great idea, it is poorly executed by the fact that the ONLY games that you can play are Donkey Kong, Pinball, Tennis, and other FIRST generation NES games. Where's Super Mario, Zelda, Metroid, Kid Icarus?
It's a handly tool if you play Pokemon (as you can swipe your card and it will give you tips and strategies on how to defeat your opponent) and it will give you even MORE stuff in Animal Crossing, but that's about it. Not really worth a purchase just yet.
Now, if The Big N actually puts some decent stuff out for the sucker, I'd be able to reccomend it. But I just can't in it's current form.
I just can't see myself getting an eReader. There is potential for the thing, but If I want to play some NES games, I'll play my NES. Its much more convenient than playing a NES game on my GBA with a big frikin thing on the top.
Every one knows I love Nintendo, but this thing... No thanks.
What, me Tweet?
Just when I thought I was ok with just buying
Smartmedia and Compact flash (I believe a PS2 adaptor can do Smartmedia, and have compact flash for my camera).
But at least theres a possibility of stopping paying huge money for vastly overpriced memory cards, such as the PS2 one. 27 UKP ($43 US) for a 8 MB memory card. Not even sure if thats 8 Megabyte, it says it, but my experience is that consoles use bits over correct terminology...
So bring it on. Its simply a transfer mechanism to larger storage for me. All you need is one memory card, and an ability to stick it onto that 200 Gig of disk space you have..
An interesting thing here is that it opens up the possibility for hacking the Gamecube. Wasn't the XBox hacked by exploiting a bug in a game when loading the save state? A similar thing could be done to the GCN and open up the possibility of running Linux on it. 485 Mhz PowerPC + good graphics card + fast (albeit small) memory + $150 = nice little machine.
Are there details re running apps/games off of the card itself? I'm hoping that this will finally open up the Gamecube to hacking and emulation (!)
Imagine being able to play a game of Super Monkey Ball, followed by a game of Atari2600 Missle Command, all on the same purple console!
Man, this will be excellent for trading Animal Crossing items/towns. Just download a whole town that has all items. Wheeeee!
Now, theoretically, if you can get the nintendo to somehow load code off the SD card, then you could run a full linux distro off your cube! that'll show those bastards at nintendo to make a proprietary machine :)
WTPOUAWYHTTOTWPA
What's the point of using acronyms when you have to type out the whole phrase anyways?
Where's Super Mario, Zelda, Metroid, Kid Icarus?
The problem, as far as I know, has to do with memory. I don't have any numbers to quote, and I don't know how much RAM is in the e-reader itself, but the cards themselves hold very little... something like 6K. For a game as big as Legend of Zelda (128K), that's over 20 cards!
Instead, I wouldn't be surprised if Nintendo put out a "Zelda All-Stars" cartridge that had both NES Zelda games on it (Similar to what Sega did with Phantasy Star). Like all the Super Mario Advance games, it would be easy to program (since it's already done), and I'm sure tons of people would buy it. Anyone at Nintendo listening?
As for Super Mario Bros, there's a perfectly good version of it for the Gameboy Color, and it'll play fine on the GBA. If you really want SMB1 for the GBA, you'd be better off getting SMB DX and saving the money by not buying a card reader... either that, or wait until Nintendo remakes it as one of the Super Mario Advance games...
What I'd like to see is a Mario game for the e-Reader that you can buy expansion packs for. For example, you'd buy Super Mario-e (or whatever they'd call it), and it would come with a bunch of levels on cards. Then you could buy a set of extra cards that would add 2 or 3 worlds to play, and the game would just ask you to swipe a card to play the level on that card. Nintendo could easily crank out new levels and charge $5 a pack and make a killing!
-"One machine can do the work of fifty ordinary men. No machine can do the work of one extraordinary man." -EH
I JUST bought an e-reader last saturday... damnit.. oh well at least I got it for $30 instead of $40 with my $10 coupon from Pokemon Ruby...
"It's not like your minds are as open as the source you love..." - Me to the majority of Slashdot.
More importantly, addressing the article...
Does the new e-reader use a different type of card? The current one just reads a 2D Barcode printed on normal cardboard cards.The US one already does this. You can save one NES game that you're playing so you don't have to re-swipe every time you turn on.Personally, I'd like to know what they're going to do about the comm port and the new GBAsp. You can't close the lid if you've got a US e-reader plugged in.
Now there's a piece of hardware I'd like to see resurected for the gamecube! :-)
I saw an article on this yesterday on IGN.com. In the article they say that to use the SD Card the game has to be speciffically programmed to do this, which serously reduces the usability of getting one.