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GameCube (Games) Entertainment Games

New Nintendo Hardware Announced 38

Posted by CowboyNeal from the console-peripherals-on-the-periphery dept.
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.
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New Nintendo Hardware Announced More

New Nintendo Hardware Announced

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  • They announced the SD card thing a while ago (Score:3, Informative)

    by k_187 ( 61692 ) on Wednesday April 30, 2003 @08:54AM (#5842512) Journal
    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?
  • that eReader plus is huge.... wow... it's like twice the size of the GBA.

  • Trading saves is nice... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by analog_line ( 465182 ) on Wednesday April 30, 2003 @09:12AM (#5842657)
    ...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.

    • Re:Trading saves is nice... (Score:4, Interesting)

      by wcbarksdale ( 621327 ) on Wednesday April 30, 2003 @09:23AM (#5842727)
      There are a few applications of the E-Reader that strike me as interesting:

      The trading cards for Animal Crossing, which allow you to receive items in the game when you scan a card. People seem to be fairly receptive of these, because they bend the rules of the game (letting you acquire certain items more easily) without breaking them outright (i.e. you buy an Action Replay and edit every item in the game into your inventory).

      The card game Mario Party-e, which is mostly a fairly simple card game, but has certain cards which tell you to scan them into the e-reader and play a minigame to determine what happens.

      The apparently fairly low cost of manufacturing the cards relative to other forms of media. It's the kind of thing you can stick in the bottom of a box of cereal.

      Finally, there's just something innately cool about an object carrying data in addition to its usual function.

  • 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.

  • But can it cope with more than 128 save files? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Westley ( 99238 ) on Wednesday April 30, 2003 @09:25AM (#5842739) Homepage
    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.
    • Slight correction: wherever the parent article says 128, read 127.
    • My biggest issue with the memory cards is not the number of save files, but the fact that although the GameCube has two memory card slots, the overwhelming majority of games will only recognise a card in the first slot. Why have two slots if the only way of accessing the second slot is to use the built-in interface for copying/moving files?

      I have two MC59s - I purchased one with the 'Cube and got a freebie when I bought a game a few months back. I have enough space on both cards for the games I play, but I
      • Which games have you got which only recognise the first slot? I'm pretty sure most of mine recognise both...
        • Which games have you got which only recognise the first slot?

          I'll just check each of my games with a single memory card loaded in Slot B...

          Games that do not recognise the memory card and ask for a card to be inserted into Slot A:

          Starfox Adventures; Metroid Prime; Super Smash Bros Melee; Burnout; Super Monkey Ball; Super Mario Sunshine; Luigi's Mansion; Wave Race Blue Storm; Pikmin; F1 2002; Driven

          Games that I own that do recognise a memory card in the second slot:

          Rogue Leader; Sonic Adventure Battle 2
          • Note, however, that not recognising there's a card in slot B when there isn't one in slot A is different to not giving you the choice when you've got a card in both, which is a more likely situation. I'll check out which of my games work with the "cards in both" scenario tonight...
            • I've also checked the games with cards in both slots, and only Rogue Leader and Sonic will load data form cards in Slot B. (FWIW, I put a blank card in Slot A and the card with all my game data in Slot B - none of the games could find the game data and instead proceded to save a new file to Slot A.)

              Of course, I may have purchased the only 11 games that refuse to look at Slot B, but I doubt it. ;-)

              This has been one of my biggest frustrations with the 'Cube. I actually have a total of four memory cards (two

  • Japan only. (Score:4, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 30, 2003 @09:38AM (#5842842)
    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.
    • Mod parent up. Nintendo is actually just releasing the US version of the eReader in Japan - one of the few times that we got an improved version of a Japanese product over what the Japanese themselves got. In other words, if you want an eReader and live outside of Japan, go ahead and get one since the updated version offers nothing we don't already have.

  • A media storage card can do more than store media. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Mr Deckchairs ( 669801 ) on Wednesday April 30, 2003 @09:45AM (#5842915)
    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' [gameshark.com] (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.

  • Don't bother with the E-Reader. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Blackwulf ( 34848 ) on Wednesday April 30, 2003 @09:50AM (#5842971) Homepage
    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.

    • Re:Don't bother with the E-Reader. (Score:4, Insightful)

      by jvmatthe ( 116058 ) on Wednesday April 30, 2003 @10:28AM (#5843343) Homepage
      I think my biggest gripe is that the price is so outrageous. Isn't it $40 for the reader and a game? That's more than half of the price of an old-style GBA, and it only allows you to play a handful of games.

      As you've pointed out, they need more software. They should also bring the hardware down to (at most) $15. Tack an extra dollar on to each game you sell for it, and put out more (good) games. Then it'll be worth it, both for Nintendo and the buyers.
    • 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
    • I don't think Nintendo US really "get" the e-reader, but there is some nice stuff leaking across from Japan. Eg: In the latest expansion of the Pokemon card game, if you have an e-reader some critters get extra functions.

      More importantly, addressing the article...

      Specifically, a new version of e-Reader, a device that takes information to the GBA via small indented plastic cards, only available in Japan and the US at present,

      Does the new e-reader use a different type of card? The current one just reads a

  • 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.
  • 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. A
  • 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!
    Of course, this opens up the ability to hack your savegame on the PC as well. No more hunting for rupees in bushes for me.
    • not only that, but with some modification you can now store ROMs on the SD Cards and that makes gg's for all, and at a fairly cheap price.
    • You can already buy readers for GC cards that hook up to your computer, allowing you to modify the save game files.

      This is a large problem in Phantasy Star Online, where your characters aren't stored on the server, but on the cards. People create high level items in their inventories, and then distribute them to other players, totally unbalancing the game. It isn't uncommon to see new characters running around with weapons that normally would have required beating the end boss on very hard difficulty -- th
  • 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.
  • 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 :)
  • 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...
    • Don't worry about it, if you are in the US, the e reader you got is the updated one. The original japanese one didn't have all the features, so this is just Japan getting those same features. I was just as confused until one of the PlanetGamecube.com staffers straightened me out in the forums.
  • 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.

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