Slashdot Mirror
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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...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.
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.