PimpReview: Nyko Cord-Free

After numerous hours of playing on my Wii and dreading the short span of cord between the Nunchuk and the Wii Remote, I thought to myself that it would be nice if there was some way to not only untether it but still be able to use it normally. Usually, third parties would solve this by making their own devices that try to copy the functionality. Luckily, I found one that doesn’t attempt to be a clone. Always on the lookout for unique and quirky accessories to enhance game play, I stumbled upon this gem.

Wii observations redux

It’s been a little over a year since my first analysis of the Wii feature set and I believe it’s time for me to take another look. We’ve seen quite a few firmware updates since then and a lot has been added feature-wise. The current state of the Wii is still weaker than the rest of the consoles in this round and I still have a lot of the same complaints. There’s also the complaints I have in my analysis of Mii usage However, a lot of stuff has been addressed from my last post.

WiiWare Information

So with the launch of WiiWare coming in May, a lot of people in the community seem to have a lot of questions remaining. There’s been no solid information for potential developers available in any of my searches on how to enroll in the program so I’ve contacted Nintendo about this matter. They have pointed me to their Wii developer application page.

First, let’s go through what we do know about WiiWare. GDC 2008 has opened up new information that gives us a little more insight to how things work.

More Wii message header fun

Passed to me from a source I would like to keep unnamed for now. These were found through means uncovered in the past month or so and are no way taken from any official source.

X-Wii-AltName:
X-Wii-AppId:
X-Wii-Cmd: %08X
X-Wii-DWCId: %08X
X-Wii-Download-Interval
X-Wii-Download-Span
X-Wii-IconNew: %08X
X-Wii-Id
X-Wii-MB-Delay: %02X
X-Wii-MB-NoReply: -
X-Wii-MB-RegDate: %04X
X-Wii-Mail-Check-Span
X-Wii-Tag: %08X
X-WiiFace:

Known Wii-related hosts

I’m just listing these as I see them. I should make an effort to label their use as well.

*.wc24.wii.com

rcw.wc24.wii.com – Seen when message polling
mtw.wc24.wii.com – Connection test maybe?

*.wapp.wii.com

weather.wapp.wii.com – Weather data per location
cfh.wapp.wii.com – Usually seen when a message is being pushed to the Wii Message Board
miicontest.wapp.wii.com – Seems to be used for retrieving data for the Check Mii Out channel
miicontestp.wapp.wii.com – Same as above but for sending
vt.wapp.wii.com – Voting channel data retrieval
vtp.wapp.wii.com – Voting channel data submission

*.shop.wii.com

ecs.shop.wii.com
nus.shop.wii.com

Info about the Wii message headers

It seems a few firmware updates ago, the processing of messages sent to a Wii user changed. Most, if not all, of the header information I’ve posted about in the past, while still valid, no longer applies to anyone other than Nintendo. That means: no more changing your displayed name & no more hiding the reply button (boo, was great for site mailings).

In my opinion, it would be nice to give users access to these things as they really don’t harm much and actually allow content creators to create unique applications using such features. To me, the message board is collecting dust and while I see Nintendo making advances to use it (the Check Mii Out notification opt-in/opt-out stuff is a good start), it’s still under-utilized.

Mii need love too

I was pondering on some ideas for how Nintendo can use the Mii system for something other than using them in their own games. It seems a bit silly to me that the Mii aren’t used for much else right now. I propose some sort of new channel (I’d even pay for it if this became a reality) that would give the Mii a bit more personality. Now this may come with whatever they decide to do with Animal Crossing but its at least letting me get my ideas out there.

NCL’s first set of Celebrity Mii

さんまさん (Sanma Akashiya)(bio)
まつおかさん (Shuzo Matsuoka)(bio)

See the Japanese ad of the two here.

Another Wiimail message header

X-Wii-AppId: [App ID]
This one apparently is used to send data to specific apps on the Wii, eg. the Mii Channel. The first known use of this one is through NCL (Nintendo of Japan) to send custom celebrity Mii to their users.

So for that case, the message contained the following:
X-Wii-AppId: 0-48414341-3031

More info on the use of this as I look deeper.

Adding custom headers to Thunderbird

Not directly game development related but just because I was asked to write a small tutorial on how to do it, here goes.

1. Go to the Tools menu then go to Options
2. Click the Advanced button then the General tab
3. Click Config Editor and you’ll get a listing of options
4. Right click on the list and choose New then String
5. In the first box, you’ll be prompted to name your new option. Call it mail.compose.other.header.
6. In the second box, input whatever additional headers you want to add as a comma-delimited string (mine has X-Wii-MB-NoReply,X-Wii-AltName,X-Wii-MB-UpdateSW,X-Wii-Id
7. Close the options list, click ok on the options box and you’re good to go.

Now when you write an email as usual, if you look in the dropdown list that normally has the To field in it, you’ll find you can choose your new headers from it. See one of my previous posts for info on how to use your new headers.