Nintendo’s Mario Kart series is known for its action packed gameplay and awesome split-screen multiplayer. While Mario Kart DS made a decent online debut, Mario Kart Wii will be the first game in the series that includes online on a home console. So far, it seems like Nintendo is really pushing Mario Kart’s online potential!
Nintendo previously announced that Mario Kart Wii will use a “Mario Kart Channel†which will be accessible even while Mario Kart is not in the Disk Drive. You will be able to use this channel to view and download ghost data from any Mario Kart Player around the world.
The Channel also let’s you register your friends, and although they are still using friend codes, you will be able see your friends online status! This is a huge step for Nintendo’s rather protective online program.
The Channel even allows you to view the current rankings and competition around the world. Competitions are challenges that Nintendo will invite people to on a regular basis, similar to the challenges featured on Mario Kart DS.
Although voice chat would be nice and we could do without the friend-codes, it looks like Nintendo’s online interface is looking up!
Wii’s all over Japan were illuminating their blue lights today, asking the Japanese to download a new channel! This new channel was the Terebi no Tomo Channel which translates to English as Television Friend Channel. The new channel can be downloaded free of charge!
The Televsion Friend Channel is actually a very nifty TV Guide, it offers information about programs one week before they air. You can even search for your favorite program using keywords or genres. The program guide also includes a ’stamp’ feature which allows you to mark your favorite programs in Mii shaped themes. If you stamp a program and you have put in your cell-phone number and/or e-mail address into your Wii, it will alert you 30 minutes before the marked show has started. You will also recieves alerts from shows that your Wii friends have stamped. The Channel also tracks the stamps of Wii users world wide and rates programs based on viewer interest.
Your Wii-mote will also be able to act as a remote control for your TV that allows you to change the channel and the volume. This may seem impossible due to the fact that the Wii-motes signal is sent to the sensor bar, but Nintendo has acheived this by having the sensor bar send out a signal, that bounces off a wall and back to your TV. (Amazing isn’t it?!?)
There is no conformation yet that the channel will hit the U.S. but it seems likely! Unfortunately, Nintendo of Europe stated that the new channel would not make it into their region.
Let’s cross our fingers and hope that we will recieve this cool new channel too!
Well, it looks like its official… (though I hope its not) Mario Kart Wii will not feature voice chat this time around.
Instead, we can use text chat… Text Chat?!? For a racing game!?!
Here’s how it’s going to work, players can create rooms for your friends to join, which means you must add all your friends with those annoying friend codes, and while in those rooms you can chat with your friends while waiting for matches. It is very likely that you will be able use a USB keyboard though, which is pretty cool, but still nothing compared to voice chat. I guess Nintendo still has not learned. Please Nintendo, please change your mind!
How do you feel about this? Leave a comment below and tell us.
If your Wii is hooked up to the net, you may have noticed that the disk slot is illuminating a pretty blue light. Don’t worry, you Wii is not about to explode and its not suffering from hardware failure like your 360 most likely is, you just received a new update from Nintendo!
But don’t go jumping for joy just yet, it’s just a minor update and there is nothing to get excited about. Once you update your Wii and load a game into it, you will notice that on the Disk Channel there is a notification streaming across it. Thats your update, pretty bland huh? Oh well, make sure you keep your Wii up to date!
Rumours about a Windwaker Link have been found all over the internet ever since Brawl was announced, well… for all of you folks who have been wanting a Windwaker Link in Smash Bros. for ages now, don’t you go ranting on the nintendo forums just yet, there is still a chance! A leaked photo from what seems to be the japanese version of the game has been floating around the internet for a couple of days now, and you can clearly see Dark Windwaker Link selected as the character! Don’t go jumping for joy either though, this is not a screen from any magazine or official game website, so this could just be a photo done by some random person with some crazy photoshop skills. The picture seems to be taken off of a tv or some kind of monitor, which is what makes it believable. What makes it look as if it’s unbelievable is the fact that there is a character named robot right next to “Toon” Link, also the fact that Sakurai stated that there would be no more clone characters. Ganondorf and Captain Falcon were clone characters, yet, they appear in this player roster. There is always the chance that Sakurai just gave them different move sets, but who knows. Check out the picture below to see what i’m talking about.
Real or Fake? My guess is that it’s probably fake, but it appears that we won’t know until the game gets to Japan in a couple of days, we’ll make sure we give you guys an update on wether or not Windwaker Link made the cut.
Lukatoll | March 7, 2008
