WiiBits

In an effort to thwart would be pirates and game importers, in the latest revision of the Wii Nintendo has altered the circuit layout.

“The new Wiis, which are part of new shipments of the console, have an altered circuit layout that makes modification more difficult than in earlier versions. Users attempting to mod the new consoles using current modchips are very likely to damage the system, the sources pointed out.”

This shouldn’t keep modders at bay for long, as I’m sure they’ll have a new modchip up and ready to go almost as soon as the new version of the console hits stores. Piracy and playing “backup” copies of rented games is wrong, but modchips are also necessary for Nintendo fans who like to import Japanese games to play on their US systems.

Read the full story. (via)

It is currently possible to buy two modchips for the Nintendo Wii gaming system with another one becoming available every day now. The available modchips are called Wiinja and cyclowiz, the one that comes out soon Wiikey. All three are connected to the Wii drive and prevent that the drive reports whether a original or copied disk has been entered. This however has the disadvantage that those chips will not be able to defeat the region code of the games.

Wiinja, Cyclowiz and Wiikey are able to play Wii and Gamecube backups from the same region and the Wiikey seems to have a good success rate to play games from other NTSC regions. This means that it could be possible to play Japanese games on a US Wii system. It is however not likely that you can play NTSC games on a PAL system with those modchips. […]

Read the full story at gHacks Tech News.

Just message board talk right now, but rumors are circulating that EGM is reporting the Wii will launch at $249. Of course we’ll probably find out officially in 12 hours or so, but this is much higher than I was expecting. Most analysts had the Wii launching at a price somewhere between $150 and $200.

via Engadget

I’m not exactly excited about the games THQ has coming (SpongeBob SquarePants? Yawn.) but president and CEO Brian Farrell has some interesting things to say about developing for the Wii…

“[The Wii] wasn’t a whole new programming environment,” Farrell said. “So we had a lot of tools and tech that work in that environment. So those costs — and again, I hate these broad generalizations — but they could be as little as a third of the high-end next-gen titles… Maybe the range is a quarter to a half.”

It’s certainly good news that the system is simple to develop for as it means more developers working on more games. If game development is cheap, it could also mean companies are willing to take more chances on more innovative games. Low development costs also mean you can turn a profit and just cater to a niche market, possibly meaning the US market will see more weird/interesting Japanese games. Let’s hope it doesn’t mean the Wii lacks the power to make the system as next-gen as their ideas.

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GameFeed has a few thoughts on IGN’s interview with EA Canada about Madden Wii. They cover the nunchuck accelerometers, which not only allow you to perform jukes but is a ton of fun to say. They’re also excited about the idea the Wii will support high definition:

Finally as a relief to many graphic whores out there who had a heart attack when Nintendo announced that Wii would not support high definition, John states in the interview that Madden Wii is being developed for 16×9 widescreen and 480p progressive scan. He commented, “As for graphics, we’ll be showing Madden in 480p and 16×9 widescreen mode running at 60 frames per second. I think it looks great. I think it looks really good.” We can all let out a big sigh of relief.

I’d love if that quote was confirmation of high definition gaming on the Wii but unfortunately it’s not. 480p resolution is not high definition, it’s enhanced definition or progressive scan. The GameCube had 480p. True HDTV signals must be at least 1280 × 720 (720p), it still appears that the Wii won’t be capable of these resolutions.

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