Matt over at IGN has updated another mailbag. In this issue, Matt addresses the Wii’s online offerings to come like demos, homebrew, and add-ons. Here are the juicy details:

I interviewed Nintendo of America’s George Harrison a couple months back and he said that the company would eventually offer a variety of content on the Wii Shopping Channel, including add-ons and demos. I think Nintendo also wants to nurture a homebrew development scene of some kind. I’d be surprised if we didn’t hear more about all of the above at the Game Developers Conference in March. In the meantime, all I can tell you is that Nintendo’s online network is in its infancy and can only improve over time. Eventually, I’m positive there will be demos for everyone to download and try.

– Matt

I really hope we hear more at GDC this coming March. If Nintendo started some homebrew development and provided more downloadable content, that could really kick Nintendo’s online service into overdrive. And, being a site dedicated to Nintendo’s wifi network efforts, I can’t wait to see what Nintendo has in store for us.

Source: IGN Mailbag

I’m sure most of you know that the much-anticipated expansion (The Burning Crusade) to World of Warcraft was released today. In addition, it was also announced that there is a new Starcraft game in development. It’s hinted at in a new interview with Itzik Ben Bassat. Diablo is also mentioned. Here’s the excerpt:

“As a Starcraft player I can tell you that I hope it wouldn’t go a decade – we launched Starcraft in ‘98 – I hope it wouldn’t go a decade before we stand here and celebrate the next Starcraft together,”

“We haven’t forgotten that we have these two franchises, and what I can tell you is that I look forward to stand here in a few years, or whenever it’s going to be, and celebrate with you the launch of the next Starcraft or the next Diablo.”

This isn’t really Nintendo news, but who knows; maybe the next Starcraft will come to the Wii and other next-gen systems.

Source: Eurogamer

A recent developer interview with Ignition Entertainment gave way to some interesting information. Ed Bradley says the Wiimote is capable of much more than people suspect. Even though motions being used in games are simplistic in nature, he says the Wiimote can deliver far more complex motion sensing. Here’s an excerpt from the interview:

Personally I think the controller is capable of translating actions far more complex and energetic than most players are interested in performing even in the privacy of their own homes…

At the end of the day developers want players to have fun rather than impose clever mathematics on them, so if it turns out to be fun only using a simple subset of the controller’s gizmos then why worry about how ‘proper’ it is?

This comes as no surprise to me since developers haven’t had much time with the controller to fully tap the potential. However, it’s only a matter of time till developers create more immersive games with the Wiimote.

Source: Kotaku

Hideo Kojima of Metal Gear Solid fame is very interested in developing for the Wii once he has finished work on MGS4. Here is a snippet of the interview with him on the subject:

Enough with Sony! What about the Wii?!

Kojima: Wii! [laughs] Yes, I want to do it. I’m saying this everyday. But first, I have to face this giant that is called Metal Gear Solid 4, so until I’m finished with that, I can’t do anything.

But the Wii isn’t HD! It doesn’t have 4D!!

Kojima: We’re not the ones who are saying we want HD. I’m not interested, myself, about HD at all. MGS games tend not to care about how clean the screen looks…we deliberately make the graphics look dirtier to give the atmosphere more life.

Well, looks like Kojima thinks it’s NOT all about graphics. We’ll have to keep watching this one to see what Kojima comes up with after MGS4.

Source: Kotaku

IGN just posted a nice interview with Spore creator Will Wright. He talks about development of the title and the possibilities of cross-platform pollenation. Here is the Wii/DS highlight of the interview:

IGN: Do you have any ideas of how the game would play on the Wii?

Wright: We’ve been messing around with the Wii dev kit and we’re really interested in the possibilities there. It’s possible the editors might be more manageable on that system. The DS is also very interesting to us, as its control scheme could be very manageable for the game.

He seems rather optimistic about both Wii and the DS. In the interview, he also talks about the possibility of communication between platforms and player-created content. Follow the link for the full interview.

Source: IGN Wii

Looks like Mortal Kombat: Armageddon will be one of those “plain port” games that will utilize the traditional Wii controller. In an interview with Game Informer, Ed Boon talks about the challenges with making MK wiimote compatible. He goes on to say that time is an issue with this iteration of MK, but perhaps in future versions he will consider using both the wiimote and WiiConnect24.

Stay tuned for more info.

Source: AMN Wii

The latest issue of Game Informer magazine has an interview with Nintendo of America’s President, Reggie Fils-Aime. In this interview, the Regginator dropped a couple bombs. He talked about ways the WiiConnect24 feature would work in certain games. He also had this to say about the mystery of the front cover on Wii:

What is the little door on the front of the unit?

Fils-Aime: That is where an SD card goes. That’s storable media. And on top, are the attachments for the GameCube controllers.

So will SD cards be the primary storage medium?

Fils-Aime: It will be one of the memory mediums, and it’s the only one that we’ve announced.

Reggie has confirmed what a lot of people expected, that the front slot would indeed be used for SD cards. He also says that this will not be the only method of storage on the system. We already know the Wii will hold 512MB of onboard flash memory. And we also know that the Wii has two USB ports on the back of the console.

Sounds to me like Nintendo is covering its bases when it comes to having plenty of storage for their games and their Virtual Console service.

Source: Game Informer

in an interview with egm shigeru miyamoto and satoru iwata had a few peices to reveal about wii. miyamato revealed that ther will not be a microphone embeded in the wiimote because of cost. they are hopeing for a headset which will not conect to the wiimote but perhaps wirelessly. moreover, nintendo are looking for ways to update grafics on the virtual console. also, they are looking for ways to utilize the “we connect 24,” into the legend of zelda: twilight princess. finally, they are looking forward to increased third party support from japanese developers, but not western developers.