TNB Latest News

A great article concerning all Aussie Wii owners was posted on Vooks the other day, so read on!

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Super Smash Bros Brawl is here for the Japanese, it’ll be here shortly for America and sadly due to other delays and the lengthy translation process (or so Nintendo says) Smash won’t be here for a many a month. We’ve had a lot of community questions about importing consoles, modding their Wii’s to play the game and some people are happy enough to wait. Either way it’s your choice – but to help you in that choice we have listed out some potential pros and cons of each method. Spoiler free, more inside!

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Voice chat will not be included in Mario Kart Wii, with Nintendo opting to only include a text chat option in the highly anticipated game. In a new update on the European website for Mario Kart Wii, Nintendo confirmed players will be able to chat to each other while waiting for a race via the Wiimote. Keyboard support has not been confirmed. While this ads some much needed communication to the Wii online experience, it would be nice to see a full-blown voice chat option made available when playing with friends.

Despite strong support for the introduction of an R18+ classification for video games in Australia, it seems the issue is dead in the water before it has even been discussed. When news surfaced that the issue of an R18+ classification was to be raised at the next Standing Committee of Attorneys-General on March 28, gamers around the country rejoiced.

But hopes were soon crushed with the announcement that South Australian Attorney-General, Michael Atkinson, would maintain his opposition to the new classification, even if there were measures to protect children from being exposed to adult content. Minister Atkinson’s opposition effectively kills off any hope of a change to the classification system as a decision on whether to introduce an R18+ rating for games must be unanimously agreed to by all state and territory attorneys-general as well as the federal government.

Nintendo has updated the Wii’s Firmware, taking users from 3.1E/U to version 3.2E/U depending on your region. The update Nintendo says has no noticeable difference visibly, but it will change some of the behind the scenes workings to improve system performance as well as a small change to the Disc Channel. For those who use homebrew, as expected the Twilight Princess hack still works. However side effects for mod chip users have not been discovered, so perhaps hold off on an update for now. Everyone else, go for it!

Well, the Game Developer’s Conference for 2008 came to a close yesterday, and with it came a huge level of conspiracy and speculation over what information for 2008 would be divulged. Full coverage inside…

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Commodore 64 classics will be coming to the Wii’s Virtual Console later this year. The games will be available for 500 Wii points ($7.50AU) and International Karate and Uridium have been confirmed to be the first titles on offer. C64 games will be only available in Europe to start with and like other VC games, be updated on a regular schedule. With over 4,000 titles produced for the Commodore 64 over its lifetime, there are plenty of games to release. More inside…

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Ubisoft announced that it has entered a distribution agreement with Square Enix Ltd. to bring The World Ends With You, an exciting new title from the makers of Kingdom Hearts, to Australia & NZ. The World Ends With You will be released in autumn 2008 across all PAL territories exclusively on the Nintendo DS.

Previously known as Subarashiki Kono Sekai on its release in Japan, The World Ends With You is an innovative new title from Square Enix that fully utilizes the capabilities of the Nintendo DS, and takes major influence from Japan’s modern day culture including its people, music, clothes, food and design. More inside…

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Nintendo have announced that they will be releasing a new pay to play online system. This will not affect all games, and current online games will still be free. To avoid confusion with the current free system, games that have pay to play will have a red sticker on them telling you that you have to pay to play online.

While this could be seen as bad with Mario Kart Wii still not out yet, and a possibility it may be the first pay to play game (complete speculation on my half there), it’s not all bad news, as this could mark the coming of MMORPG’s, it could persuade developers to put in online content as it would be an extra source of revenue.

Someone at Nintendo Europe obviously decided to do some serious work today. Not only have they confirmed Mario Kart Wii with a good release date they have also confirmed Wii Fit for release on the 25th of April. Two big games in the same month but in very different markets.

We even have news of Wii Fit’s PAL weight limit. The box says that the max weight limit for the Wii Balance board is 150kg. The limit is raised from the Japanese version which was a max of 135kg.

We are officially fatter than the Japanese in Nintendo’s eyes!

Even though PAL gamers have had to endure a long wait for Super Smash Brothers: Brawl it seems the same won’t be true for Mario Kart Wii, with Nintendo announcing the game will be out on April the 11th in Europe, only one day after Japan.

This is, according to VideoGamer.com who claim that Nintendo Europe announced the release date today. Aussie games haven’t been given a release date yet, but the title should be out in April sometime, we’ll speak to Nintendo tomorrow and try and find out an Australian date sooner rather than later.

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A response from a gamer on the announcement of the Brawl and Mario Kart release dates:

“Actually, the Mario Kart release date is rather pleasant, I was expecting it later. SSBB’s date however has me vomiting in rage!”

You heard it here first.