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Warp Pipe Group May Bring Online Gaming to DS
dolphin558 writes "Warp Pipe may be in partnership with Nintendo to bring online gaming to the Nintendo DS! What's more, the project is supposed to add a "social aspect" to online gaming that hasn't been seen before. A press conference is scheduled for October 7th. I cannot wait!" This would seem to partially confirm earlier speculations, and partially explain Warp Pipe's decision earlier this year.
I'd be quaking in my boots about now... Seriously, the opinion has really shifted. At first everyone thought the PSP would smackdown the DS. But Nintendo bit by bit is slowly showing us that there is far more to the DS than meets the eye. While Sony seems to have shown all their cards for the PSP, it looks like Nintendo has a whole lot up their sleeve.
If you've been following Nintendo at all then you know that this is great news! The big N has been doing a lot lately to clean up their act (anyone watch their E3 breifing? Reggie rocks!). I fully expect Nintendo to be the dominant player duking it out with Microsoft in the next couple generations.
Nintendo recognizes talent when they see it. The Warp Pipe folks created a thriving online community on the Nintendo Gamecube with little to no first party support. The DS has a lot of unique online potential due to its portability. I'm anxious to see what they come up with.
So true, that's what drove me away from all online games. I don't know, lots of people say they are shy and don't like to socialize in real life, but very communicative behind their screens because they're "hidden".
It just doesn't work with me, i'm at least as shy in a chat than in rl, maybe even more. And when i'm playing other players generally disturb me more than anything else. In fact i prefer to socialize in real life, when i'm in front on my computer I generally want to be left alone. Those times when everyone wants to be linked permanently to say nothing aren't nearly as fun as those when you sat alone in front of your 8 bit computer and just tried to make cool things with it, if you ask me...
I remember before warp-pipe that NOJ had released a similar tool, possibly made in-house. Can anybody remember that?
Another thing, when a project becomes closed source, what implication does it have on people who have source code from when it was open?
They developed a way to get the GameCube online...something the device was never meant to do.
I think Nintindo is making a good call by going with these guys, if they can make hardware go online this was never suppose to, imagine what they can do with hardware this is designed to go online
"Some things have to be believed to be seen." - Ralph Hodgson
The article is good publicity for Warp Pipe. Which, as it clearly identifies, is now a business.
However, the article basically takes some random actions on the part of the Warp Pipe team (i.e. posting images with a DS badly photoshopped into them), combines them with some random allusions and common assumptions (i.e. Marionette, online play), and then pulls a patent applying to the Gameboy Color out of nowhere.
Out of that we get:
1. Warp Pipe is now a business.
2. A bunch of people know big things but aren't telling us, and won't even confirm that they know big things that they won't tell us.
3. GBC Patent.
4. This somehow correlates into the DS being online.
So what do we get? Questionable rumors and what's probably hype over Warp Pipe's next project. I mean, is anyone else getting anything out of this beyond Warp Pipe publicity?
Nothing against Warp Pipe, mind you, as they've done great things on the Gamecube. I find myself wondering if they're just using all this mysterious BS to simply hedge their bets (and bets that are theirs alone) should the DS not fit into their online schemes.
While that may be true for most X-Box gamers, most middle/high school kids don't live in a dark closet.
My kids for instance, are very social with their gaming. My children and their friends have set up group gaming battles in Pokemon Stadium where everyone brings over their carts and plays against each others characters. They arrange trades, etc...
One of my children bugged me constantly to try and convince me to let him take his Animal Crossing memory card to school so that he can take turns trading towns with a friend so they can visit each other's towns to trade fruit, etc... So on, and so forth...
I for one am very excited about the added social dynamics to be introduced here. Any thing that get's kids out and engaged with their peers has a lot of positive potential.
The first I've heard about warp pipes involvement and the online aspects of the new DS was over at engadget. Once there i followed a few links to the gamecube forums and found a lot of really neat stuff and puzzles that Nintendo has released to the public on what the DS's online capabilities will be. The stuff is really cool, and I invite you all to check it out and let me know what you think.
Link to puzzles and gamecube forum: http://www.gamecubicle.com/bb/viewtopic.php?t=3035 /
Im especially curious about the picture of the Marionette heheh (Mario Net) and the boy in the woods with the dog. Check it out and tell me what you think.
Also after reading through all the information and speculation on what the DS online capabilities are going to be I read that the reason that Nintendo didnt want to go online with the cube was because the didnt want to charge their customers monthly fees like Sony and M$. However Nintendo has been wanting to go online for sometime and doing it witht the DS offers them a way to do it for free. Imagine if you will your DS as a repeater hub, then imagine being able to plug your gamecube or next gen Nintendo console into your DS and being connected global multiplayer areana. I honestely havent read anything cooler in a long time, and to repeat whaty someone said in the gamecube forum. "man Nintendo really knows how to sell a gaming system!!
Link to engadget where my adventure started: http://engadget.com/entry/4182100443364188/