Dcubed

So... that announcement that was mentioned on Japanese TV to be coming on Jan 8th... http://www.pokemon.co.jp/ex/important_announce/ The official PKMN website now has a page set up telling people to bookmark this page for the day. I'm starting to think that it's a bit more than just Hey You Pikachu 2

The radiator is the first thing I thought of using... Same goes for the Fire Flower to get that level's other Comet Sticker!

If you take those functions away, the games would crash. Anything that uses Miis (which is a large chunk of the Wii's library BTW) would simply not function. And the Wii Mode has no way of even detecting the Gamepad at all, it's a limitation of hardware based backwards compatibility. What you are asking for can only be done through software emulation. Hardware based BC simply cannot work in the way you're describing (It's all or nothing).

They have to have it seperate in order to maintain full compatibility. The DS or DSi's games never had any functions that hooked into its OS. The Wii however has the Miis that hook into the Mii Channel, games that can send messages to the Wii Message Board, games that can access data from the Weather and Mii Contest Channels and games that can install channels to the Wii Menu. If the OS wasn't there, the games would just crash and not function. All the 3DS has to do is activate its BC mode to fully run DS/DSi games. The Wii U on the other hand has to have all of the Wii's base functions built in in order for games to function properly. There's no way around it sadly. Likewise, activating Wii Mode literally turns the Wii U into a Wii (just like GCN mode turned the Wii into a GCN). The Wii Mode has no way of accessing any of the Wii U's hardware functionality and so, cannot stream games to the Gamepad. It's a hardware limitation and something that just comes with the territory of hardware based BC. Again, no way around it.

I think the bolded is correct. It's the same as with the Wii ATM, though who knows what's gonna happen when the Wii U VC comes out and whether or not we'll get upgraded to native Wii U versions of VC games...

AFAIK, no. You get Club Nintendo stars for them, but no NPremium points. The NPremium points come from Wii U eShop downloads only (though the download code that you get from the website can actually be redeemed on any Nintendo estore - including the Wii U & 3DS eShop, as well as the Wii Shop Channel and the DSiWare store )

They've already confirmed that you'll be able to play Wii U VC games on the Gamepad when the Wii U service launches. Iwata mentioned this specifically in the last Nintendo Direct. It's just a long and gruelling wait until it actually launches now. I hunger to play the likes of DKC1-3 (the proper SNES versions!), Mario 64, Super Mario RPG, Wind Waker and Wave Race 64 in bed!

Nothing stopping Nintendo or other publishers from dropping the RRP though. That's what Gaijin Games are doing with Bit Trip Saga... Or better yet, NOE and NOA may eventually release the download cards at retail and this nonsense will finally come to a happy end

Not necessarily many retail games per-say, but I wanted something that would last me till the end of the generation (and I had an Amazon voucher that I needed to use up anyway, with not much else I wanted to buy off there :p) With a deluge of eShop titles to come and stuff like Code of Princess looking likely to be eShop only here in Europe, I wouldn't be surprised if I end up using the whole thing by the end!

Yeah it currently is the biggest game on the eShop (about 1.5GB, beaten only by MH3U in Japan, which is around 1.8GB and Bravely Default, which is around 1.9GB) BTW, this game also marks the end of my 8GB SD Card. I'm actually gonna have to delete some demos to make space for NSB! (good thing that I've got a 64GB card coming in the post, that should keep me going for a while )

It's probably not that bad. More likely closer to the DSi security hole (that was quickly closed off for good), than the PSP (which was critically flawed from day-1 as it was stupidly able to run unsigned code off the memory stick). They admit that it's easily patchable and that they're using a buffer overflow save file exploit to get system access (the same method that was used on DSi and was quickly closed off) The fact that system updates are done automatically and are mandatory makes the situation even more difficult for hackers than the DSi was...

Nope. Still waiting on mine too. Gonna give them a ring later on today... Edit: Ok, so I just rang them... Apparantly they're releasing the codes in batches, with the next one being sent out tomorrow. The one after that hits within the first week of January. If I don't receive it by Jan 7th, then something would've gone wrong and they'll chase it up for me. Hopefully it'll just get emailed to me tomorrow, but I'm glad to know that nothing has really gone wrong for me

They said that they're not planning on doing a sale any time soon (think it was on twitter they mentioned it, either that or an interview - I remember reading that comment a few weeks back or so...) I'd say go ahead and get Trine 2 while it's still on sale. NANeo probably wont go on sale until about another 5-6 months time (that's how long it took Art of Balance Touch to go on sale on 3DS...)

The guys are claiming that they're not gonna release it though and that it would be very easily patchable. Same thing happened to the DSi where EA's Sudoku DSiWare game had a save file exploit that gave kernel access, but the game was quickly pulled, patched and a system update was released . Nobody has successfully hacked the DSi since and of course, the 3DS auto-downloads system updates; so you couldn't choose not to download it anyway... They claim that there's an exploit in a game that is available at retail and on the eShop (but currently the said exploit only works on the physical version) I'd bet on Mario Kart 7 being the culprit...

I reckon that EO4 will get a (belated) release thanks to Ghostlight. Those guys weren't around (or at least weren't publishing Atlus games) when EO2 & 3 were released originally and I'm sure that they won't let this one slip by them! Bravely Default is the one I'm worried about. S-E seem to be completely inept at the moment and don't seem to want to localise anything themselves that isn't FF13 related (hell even KHDDD had its marketing and distribution handled by NOE - and they still couldn't be bothered to localise the text into Italian or Spanish!). I'm sure that Nintendo will take care of DQ7's western release and hopefully DQM3DS as well, but I'm not so sure about BD... Soul Hackers is also one I'm wary about too. EO4 is a much more important game than SH and Ghostlight can only do so much (they're struggling just to get DSOverclocked released!)

Yeah, playing FFVII, FFIV PSP and FFIX on the Vita is really nice! Shame that it's the crappy PS1 versions of FFV and FFVI on the PSN store though... Would kill to have the proper SNES versions on the 3DS (or the Wii U Gamepad!)

Yeah, I just finished W3-10 myself. The remix in that stage is rrrrreeeaaaallllyyy subtle

Only if it makes it out over here...

Okami HD is a must have! €20 is nothing for a game that good (and the PS3 port is perfect - the best HD Remaster released so far by a mile!) It's the best Zelda game, that's not actually called "Zelda", ever made. The Walking Dead is only recommended if you're looking for a good story. The "game" part of it is almost non-existent (it's basically a choose-your-own adventure book in visual form). With the remaining €30, get House of the Dead 4 or Afterburner Climax along with the Ico/SOTC Collection.

Zen Pinball 2 is now coming out in January... https://mobile.twitter.com/zen_studios/status/284102861447651328 At least it hasn't been delayed by much

Couple of tidbits... Swords and Soldiers is coming to the 3DS eShop! From GoNintendo... Code of Princess has been USK rated for Europe and looks like it might be an eShop only release (the publisher is Agatsuma Entertainment themselves, who currently have no EU presence and the only language listed is English...) Ravi Laby 2 has also been USK rated for an EU release on DSiware too (as well as Family Kart 3D, but nobody cares about that shite)

I've heard stories of people waiting over 4 months for deliveries to arrive in some cases! They offer cheaper prices than most other places, but you pay for it with your time...

That's putting it lightly!

Probably not. Remember, retailers set the prices over here now. We all know that they've all slapped on a huge markup over the wholesale price that they can just chip away at (we're paying by far the highest price for the console and the 3DS had about £50 extra slapped onto it at launch!)

The game has just recieved an EU USK rating, so an EU release is seemingly confirmed Interestingly, Agatsuma Entertainment is listed as the EU publisher and the only language listed is English... I wonder if they've decided to just release it as an eShop title, just featuring Atlus' English localisation, and are forgoing retail alltogether? (Considering that Agatsuma Entertainment obviously have no EU presence of their own...)