Nintendo Wii Fanboy

Your Mii Channel holds a terrible secret: DS connectivity. We may not have the DS Personal Trainer: Walking (Aruite Wakaru Seikatsu Rhythm DS) yet, but our Wiis are apparently ready to connect to it. As this video demonstrates, you can unlock the DS connection feature in your own Mii Channel right now, by pressing A, B, 1, and then holding 2. The Wii will start looking for DS systems nearby capable of interfacing with the Mii Channel -- which pretty much means Personal Trainer, into which Miis can be imported. Even if the connection fails, your Mii Channel will now feature a "connect to DS" button.

Sure, this may be useless, but it's like a cheat code -- for your system! How very cool. Has this always been there, or did it sneak in with the last update?

[Update: Apparently the feature's been there since last year, or maybe before, but the method had yet to be documented.]

[Via GoNintendo]

Oh, if only we could always start the morning with hot Death on Death action ... well, we'd at least be more inclined to like Castlevania Judgment. Alas, it's only shiny and new this once, and hereafter, all Death v. Death deathmatches will be, as they say, played out.

But for a moment, for one bright, shining, purply-explosions moment, Castlevania Judgment was beautiful. Now we're back to bursting muscles, wacky shorts, and flawed gameplay. But buck up, little campers: there's a bit of news on the Order of Ecclesia/Judgment DS-Wii connectivity front. We knew the DS title's heroine, Shanoa, was unlockable in Castlevania Judgment, and as we speculated, so is Aeon -- both through the DS/Wii game connection. In the DS game, Wii connectivity adds a hard mode and raises your level cap in one mode to a whopping 255. Do we need to be so badass? Oh yes. Yes, we do.

Just in case you are one of the four people in the world who doesn't own a DS (for shame!), here's what you may be missing out on in Pokémon Battle Revolution. With all the discussion on the game today, we thought it might be nice to spotlight the Wii game's handheld connectivity. Check it out after the jump.

Pikachu looks so sad here. A little forlorn. Poor little guy.

[Update: Fixed broken link.]

Surely you've thought at some point, hunched over your keyboard because that damned essay is due tomorrow morning, that words could flow glibly and beautifully from your fingertips, as they do so often at Nintendo Wii Fanboy.

All right, that was a little arrogant. We're sorry.

Anyway. As you very well may know, Brain Age focused fairly heavily on the numerical side of things. Equations = sadness. Did it teach you how to express, or to inspire? Hell no. And so Ubisoft jumps into the brain training genre, with both Wii and DS versions of their literary inculcator, My Word Coach.

There's an in-depth preview over at IGN, and we highly encourage you to peruse their hands-on experience. We'd also like to point out that this game features a simple and effective DS-to-Wii communication feature, in which handwriting performed via stylus is instantly translated into the Wii title, which coincidentally happens to have a far more robust handwriting recognition system than did Brain Age. Is your brain tingling in excitement? We certainly hope so.

Is it wrong to have loved Crash Bandicoot back in the day? If it is, we'll just have to settle for being wrong ... but we will say that this news seems to have come out of nowhere. We're not going to ask any awkward questions about Sony (that would be the big elephant in the room here), but instead, we'll just quietly raise an eyebrow and hope that this game brings a fun and frenetic experience to Nintendo systems.

There's also a hint of DS-Wii functionality here, and even if Crash himself doesn't excite you, perhaps that will. According to a Spanish gaming magazine, Crash of the Titans will hit shelves in October, though we're guessing that's a European date.

As usual, you can see the scan after the break.

The Wii is gloriously Wi-Fi enabled right out of the box, a lovely addition to the console. But, alas, not all of us are high tech money-throwers with advanced router setups in our third floor libraries. Well, we are (though it's in the fourth floor media-viewing room), but for everyone else, Nintendo has announced an Ethernet kit that will (presumably) take a standard ethernet cord and run it through one of the two USB slots on the back of the console.

Another option is the Nintendo Wi-Fi USB dongle, an option made available for DS users without a router. However, the limited availability and relatively high price have been a bit of a barrier, so it's nice to see that Nintendo is offering a hardwired option. Plus, wired speeds and connection stability are still generally superior to any wireless network, so some of us you rich boys might want to pick one up regardless.

[Thanks, Probot!]

It's the picture that has everyone frothing -- but Nintendo's not giving up the details just yet, despite rampant speculation about precisely how the two Nintendo platforms will hook up. Will it be a whirlwind romance or a true partnership?

Here's what we know -- the Wii will serve as a "download station" for the DS. And we have the image from Nintendo's site. The translated text mentions Pokemon, and though our Google translation is weak at best, it seems that you can pull Pokemon off the DS and onto the Wii. What for? We're not sure yet. And what will a "download station" provide, anyway? Will the DS be able to handle Virtual Console titles?

Connectivity is nothing new when it comes to Nintendo. Eventually, we'll be able to connect enough Nintendo platforms to build a giant stompy robot, so it's not at all surprising that the Wii and the DS will have a special relationship. As for theories, we are firmly behind the PinkSquiggle Technology mentioned at the Ars Technica forums. And we'd still like a pony.

[Thanks, Marc!]

Another image has arisen, finally giving a clear view of the innards of the mysterious front flap of the Wii. Indeed, there are only two objects of note: a single SD card slot, and a mysterious button dubiously labeled "Sync". Avoiding all references to a particularly horrible pop band, this button is presumably to wirelessly link the Wii and the Nintendo DS. Convenient, no? Maybe Nintendo's big "connectivity" campaign could finally take off, without all those messy wires.

Alas, there is no secret 3-D projector super-laser technology in the Wii. There doesn't even appear to be a camera. We've now seen every inch of the hardware, and while it's certainly subject to change, I wouldn't expect too much.