Loose Threads: Does the DS make good enough use of the Wii?

[Fraser]

What do I mean by that? Well allow me to explain.

The Wii is a potentially fantastic gateway to all sorts of awesome new content for DS owners such as demos, WiiWare titles and all that Virtual Console malarkey.

Sadly, at the moment it seems that the only Wii channel that offers anything of this sort, the Nintendo Channel, is dolefully quiet and not updated nearly often enough.

Then there's the scope for being able to use the DS to control certain aspects of Wii games. Is this something we want to see more of, or is it just too specialized to work?

Bit of left field one this week, let's see what you make of it...

[hunter_alien]

Well yes there is a lot of potential in the DS-Wii connectivity. The DS can be used to transfer some data between it and the Wii Pokemon game. Thats a good start. Then there is that rumor that you will be able to use the DS as a ghost detector in the upcoming Ghostbusters game. That would be even cooler. I do believe that more games will use the two in the future seeing the popularity of the two, and the fact that this would be a great selling point for gamers.

Now the issue is that the DS has no reliable storage device. Thats a huge bummer. VC games could be played on the DS if lets say the hand-held would have some built-in memory or if it would have a memory stick reader as the PSP ( NES/SNES/Genesis/PC engine etc. games of couurse , not N64 ). It could be done in so many ways. Release official 512mb-1gb Nintendo cards , make a redesign, but at this point I dont think that Nintendo will do any huge changes until the DS 2 will arrive.

To bad they missed the mark with the GC-GBA connectivity and the DS-Wii potential is in a great danger to fade away to.

[danskmacabre]

Nintendo really seems to have missed the boat with Wii DS connectivity.

They could have had an option to use the DS as a rear view mirror for car racing games such as mario kart, or a drawing program from the DS to the screen, all sorts of cool things.

Hell they could have even had a feature to download demos to your DS from the Wii (Isn't this actually available in Japan?)

Such a shame, it's not TOO late tho, but it should have been done earlier.

[Fraser]

I agree with you there dansk, it's not like the Wii or the DS are going anywhere quite yet so the potential is still there but it is a shame that Nintendo hasn't made more of a move on this yet.

I like the idea of using the DS to draw something I can see on the big screen with the Wii. How about being able to design clothes or objects for your Miis or something. Having said that, that level of customisation might invite a few too many sweary t-shirts and crude anatomical pictures (if you catch my drift) for Nintendo's liking

Just so you know, the DS can download demos from the Wii and the service is available in Europe now too, it's all on the Wii's Nintendo channel. The trouble is, it is updated very infrequently and older stuff is taken down after a short time.

That's where the real missed potential is if you ask me. If Nintendo updated the Nintendo channel with say 3 demos a week, with games that people actually want to play, it could be a real hit.

[Accelorata Jengold]

Nintendo has never really been a company that does demos. Perhaps it is time Nintendo started to embrace demos and digital delivery in general, but I have always felt that part of the magic of a Nintendo game is that you have never played it before you buy it.

I rarely have the feeling with a Nintendo title that the game has been subject to the design by committee ethos, it always feels like whoever made it had a clear and singular vision for it from the start. I imagine 'Public Beta' is a bit of a dirty word(s) at Nintendo HQ.

It's not like I am against such things but you don't often have an author or an artist handing their book or sculpture over to the public for it to be changed and rechisselled. I think Nintendo takes a similar attitude, as a company they hold tightly to the notion of craftsmanship, and demos don't really fit in with that. Even so that doesn't explain the absence of third party demos so I suppose my point is sort of moot.

Back on topic, I've said it before and I'll say it again, give me access to the virtual console on the DS, at least for the titles that would make sense on the platform without the need for considerable reworking of the controls.

[SetsFireToPoshHammer]

Though I don't deny that some sort of interconnectivity between the two consoles would be pretty cool while playing games, I can't help but feel that few people would ever bother to use it.

I suppose with the lack of wires or extra peripherals needed to make it work, it makes more sense with the Wii and DS than Nintendo's previous attempts at linking its handheld and home consoles, but I just don't know how much it would add to the experience of Wii games. I have got this far without an external rear view mirror in driving games, so I don't think I am in dire need of one all of a sudden.

Content delivered to your DS via the Wii however I am very much behind. It makes so much sense for demos, virtual console titles, WiiWare titles etc. to be made available to the DS. It probably won't ever happen the way we all want it to but isn't that almost always the way with Nintendo?

[daab.orion]

Honeslty, I think Nintendo is so scared at repeating another Gamecube/GBA type experience, they just said "forget it". I mean, it's not like the PSP is really making that much better use of the connectivity. Why do I need to akwardly lean my PSP against my TV to make a rear view mirror, when the rear view mirror on the screen would not only be the same size, but in the correct place a rear view mirror should be.

I do agree though. Even if Nintendo wanted to do that, it's nearly impossible without a better storage system. I guess they could utilize the GBA slot to put some sort of memory device there, but I think they're just going to wait for the DS successor if they even bother. The DS is already.. what... 4-5 years old now? They could just do a temporary stream of data through WiFi to the DS to just make it a controller and not something you actually would save data too, but I think trying to go back and forth between the wiimote and Ds would be annoying.

I'm glad the Wii is just the Wii. If I want to play a DS type game, I'll just boot the DS up.

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