GameCube Mailbag - October 18, 2005

I've been writing for a while with what I think are good questions/suggestions, yet I never see my letter in the mailbag! Such things cause rage and turmoil and dead kittens! ...Sorry, moving on though.

There's been a lot of speculation going on around TP and the Revolution. Matt, you say it would make sense to just port it over and I completely understand your logic on this, while Nintendo states they don't want to be un-loyal to its GCN customers. Therefore, I thought to myself "Why don't they just satisfy both sides?"

Do you remember Zelda: Oracle of Seasons/Ages for the GBC? In this game, if you played it on the GBA, you had access to exclusive content that couldn't be seen on the GBC. Why can't they do the same thing with Twilight Princess except on a more massive scale? This way, they're loyal to those who have held on to their GCN's, but giving those who paid extra more bang for their buck. This seems like it would make perfect sense, and it may be one other thing they're up to over at NHQ. Do you think they are doing this? I sure hope so. I plan on buying Revolution at launch, and TP would be an awesome "launch game."

Matt responds: Oh, I'm sure there will be a double-dip presentation of Zelda and you present an interesting possibility. It'd be nice to see some unlockables opened up when the title is played on Nintendo's next-gen platform. I think most Revolution owners, however, would probably prefer that Zelda take full advantage of the console's unique controller. And I doubt Nintendo could (or would want to) pull off separate control mechanics for GameCube and Revolution versions. That would be a pain in the ass undertaking, to put it mildly. Kind of a waste, if you ask me -- Midna's crazy stretchy arm is practically begging to be controlled with Revolution's pointer.

PS3 Arrival

im to lazy to try and convince people that ps3 is coming out christmas of next year can u write a little letter saying how impossible it is for ps3 to come out in summer 2006

Matt responds: Cheers to your bold take on the English language. I think punctuation is unnecessary and overrated, too. Turns out, I can't say that Sony won't launch PlayStation 3 in time for 2006's summer season. It might just happen in Japan. I've certainly heard from some publishers that Sony has asked them to ready their PS3 games for March or April, which seems completely ambitious to me. I think that for Sony it's really going to come down to how well received Xbox 360 proves to be. If Microsoft's console sells through the roof, I'm quite certain that PS3 will be arriving much sooner than previously expected. If, on the other hand, 360 merely scrapes by over the holidays, which I doubt, then I wouldn't expect to see PS3 until late next year.

To make this response very slightly related to Revolution, we know that Nintendo has by comparison officially stated it plans to launch its next-generation console in the "latter half of 2006."

Man Down

How well is Battalion Wars selling? It doesn't seem like there's a lot of interest in BW like there is for Advance Wars.

Matt responds: Not so great, unfortunately. The title sold through about 17,000 units in September. It was released on September 18. That's not a strong beginning. Super Mario Star Baseball, which released at the very end of August, sold about 165,000 copies in September, which eclipses any number Battalion Wars is likely to achieve. It's a sad fact. All Nintendo needs to do is throw Mario and friends into a game and it sells well On GameCube -- in this case, better than Battalion Wars, despite being nowhere near as good.

You Bet

I know that the revelution won't be able to use hd formatted picture, but I do not know if you can still use it on an hd tv. Does it work on an hd tv?

Matt responds: Yep. It'll work just fine on any high-definition television. It can even run games in 480p (progressive scan) mode.

Ports and Back Panel

I recall reading that the Revolution will feature 2 USB 2.0 ports. What will these be used for?

My theory is one of two things: (1) the receivers for the controller will plug into them (how come there aren't any pics of these things) or

(2) it will be used to hook up a keyboard. Let's face it, the Revolution's controller makes it the most suited console to date for web surfing; you're gonna need a keyboard to make the most out of it though. Will the revolution have a web browser built in?

Also, one last thing, do you have a pic of the back of the Revolution? Presumably, this is where the USB ports will be.

Matt responds: Nintendo hasn't specified what the USB 2.0 ports will be used for yet, but based on comments from the company, we know that the controller will communicate by way of Bluetooth with the senor bars, which are placed in front of or near the television. It's more than likely that the same technology will then communicate the information directly to Revolution without any USB hook-ups.

Bearing that it mind, the USB 2.0 ports could be used for a number of additional options, from a peripheral camera to an add-on hard drive. Of course, the Big N hasn't revealed what its plans for the ports are just yet. As much as a keyboard might seem to make sense, such a device would also stray from Nintendo's games-only approach to the industry.

There are no pictures of the back of the unit. I went hands on with the Revolution casing at E3 2005 and even wrote about the back panel, but I didn't think to take notes on the layout of everything and in hindsight I wish I would have. The Big N has not released a single photo of the back panel and as a result everyone is curious about what lurks there. I can definitely tell you that when I saw it, there was a proprietary audio/video out that looked like the component out on GameCube. I can only assume that this output handled both audio and video because there were no additional outputs. And yes, that means that the machine had no digital audio out, either. Also located on the back panel were the two USB 2.0 ports.

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