Of all the new features Brawl will bring to the Smash Bros. table, the ability to fight opponents online is arguably the most eagerly anticipated. Still, some might argue that Nintendo just ain't that great at this online malarkey, and that Brawl's Wi-Fi mode could be a big, fat fly in an otherwise quite lovely tub of ointment.
Director Masahiro Sakurai is clearly aware of these concerns, because today's dojo update features footage of an online scrap between Nintendo's headquarters in Kyoto and the development team in Tokyo -- apparently, this is pretty close to the distance between Las Vegas and Los Angeles, which Google Maps tells us is 435 kilometers, or 270 miles. The resulting four-man online brawl looks buttery-smooth and fills us with hope.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
1-24-2008 @ 3:10PM
Co said...
I'm not so sure the distance matters as much as the connection strength does.
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1-24-2008 @ 3:31PM
Beanie said...
Well, you'll have a better connection, or, ping/latency rate between closer locations. The less hops (as through a bunch of ISP routers) a connection makes the better. This is why Nintendo has been limiting the WFC matches in their offering to within the same region, just to give a smoother experience.
1-24-2008 @ 3:29PM
BPM4:Guns of the Idiots said...
Well, the way I see it...
Wii uses IEEE802.11g, which allows for a transfer rate up to 54 Mbps.
DS uses IEEE802.11b, which goes up to 11 Mbps.
So, going by this, the Wii should allow for more bandwidth than the DS... But there's still the issue of broadband connection speeds.
I have a connection speed of 1.5Mbps. But I know that home broadband connections can go up to 15Mbps (but that costs $60 a month! Yikes!), so unless your connection is faster than 11Mbps, you won't know a difference between Wi-Fi B or Wi-Fi G. Heck, even a wired connection won't provide a faster connection than a wireless one!
What am I getting at? I forgot...
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1-24-2008 @ 7:15PM
Mr Khan said...
If you live in one of those sainted areas of the country that has FiOS, you can get up to 50 Mbps, but they'll put ya under $100 a mo. for it
1-24-2008 @ 3:32PM
MemphisNET said...
It has more to do with the latency (time it takes to update in miliseconds, lower the better) than overall speed.
Did anyone else get turned on by the huge Star Fox battle in the background? Star Fox Wii please!
Oh, and FZero as well
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1-24-2008 @ 3:37PM
DonWii said...
It lagged for a sec when Samus finished her FS.
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1-24-2008 @ 4:12PM
Julien said...
Could be the video... not the game itself. There's no way to know
1-24-2008 @ 4:23PM
Mr Khan said...
Since its a crappy flash video and its getting a lot of hits today, you can't really judge this for the tiny little framerate hiccups that fighting gamers have always sworn would prevent fighting games from going online
Although the ping and latency of this connection is probably really loaded. Unless it was a deliberate test over a domestic internet connection (like they went to Sakurai's apartment that he bought near the Brawl studio or something), they're running with a T1 connection or better between a relatively small area (at least for those of us who may be pulling in-region Pittsburgh to Tacoma matches or something of equal distance)
1-24-2008 @ 4:23PM
Mr Khan said...
Since its a crappy flash video and its getting a lot of hits today, you can't really judge this for the tiny little framerate hiccups that fighting gamers have always sworn would prevent fighting games from going online
Although the ping and latency of this connection is probably really loaded. Unless it was a deliberate test over a domestic internet connection (like they went to Sakurai's apartment that he bought near the Brawl studio or something), they're running with a T1 connection or better between a relatively small area (at least for those of us who may be pulling in-region Pittsburgh to Tacoma matches or something of equal distance)
1-24-2008 @ 3:51PM
Mr Khan said...
One note of concern
When they said "No records will be kept" they apparently meant it, look at that results screen. No KOs, TKOs, SDs, no nothing, just a rank and no explanation
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1-24-2008 @ 4:15PM
Patrick said...
Ya this is really smooth. But as DonWii said, it does lag for a second after Samus's final smash. But another thing, did anyone notice that the Sand Bag (from the minigame, you know what I'm talking about), spawned as an item on the left side of the screen about 3/4 of the way through? It didn't even come out of a box or barrel, it just spawned. Hopefully it will have something really cool if you use it, instead of just being a distraction.
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1-24-2008 @ 4:19PM
PyrosNine said...
I love how Mario wins a kirby victory by dying the least followed with a cheap shot! Genius!
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1-24-2008 @ 4:53PM
krytos said...
I doubt the online play will be as smooth as everyone hopes. Think about it. The good players can notice the lag difference between a wavebird and wired controller. Those microseconds in lag make a difference between winning and losing pro matches. How could the internet connection POSSIBLY keep it smooth enough if people were complaining about the wavebird?
For those who don't know, wavebird = wireless game cube controller
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1-24-2008 @ 8:11PM
BPM4:Guns of the Idiots said...
I'm pretty sure just about everyone who views the comments here knows what a WaveBird is...
And as much as I've played Melee, I've never noticed a differnece between a wired and wireless controller, and I've won many a game with serious players, too.
1-24-2008 @ 5:04PM
Nate said...
Looks pretty good.
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1-24-2008 @ 8:00PM
glass soldiers said...
well looks like im importing this badboy, plus DairantÅ smash bros. X sounds way more kickass then super smash bros. brawl
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