[HN Gopher] Kawaii - A Keychain-Sized Nintendo Wii
___________________________________________________________________
Kawaii - A Keychain-Sized Nintendo Wii
Author : realslimjd
Score : 703 points
Date : 2024-07-22 19:12 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (bitbuilt.net)
(TXT) w3m dump (bitbuilt.net)
| pryelluw wrote:
| This is just fantastic. I wonder how small older consoles can be
| these days while still maintaining full hardware compatibility.
| yieldcrv wrote:
| very, could make an adapter dongle for anything requiring pins
| spondylosaurus wrote:
| The PS2 Ultra Slim is a fun one:
| https://bitbuilt.net/forums/index.php?threads/ps2-ultra-slim...
|
| And it still has the original controller/memory card ports!
| whalesalad wrote:
| with FPGA's you can have 100 consoles in one.
| https://misteraddons.com/
| pryelluw wrote:
| Though I might say that's cheating, it is a welcome solution
| 0cf8612b2e1e wrote:
| You would likely get into "full compatibility" lawyering very
| quickly. Many of the consoles have weirdo hardware components
| in some module or another that is still poorly understood.
| haunter wrote:
| See the R36S clones from China
|
| https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005006152991376.html
| jsheard wrote:
| If we're counting emulation they can get even smaller than
| that, practicality be damned.
|
| https://www.funkey-project.com
| pryelluw wrote:
| I already own a miyoo with the emus though I meant something
| that replicates the original hardware and can run the actual
| game cartridges/ISOs
| userbinator wrote:
| A NES SoC would fit easily within the area of a microSD card
| containing all ROMs ever published for it, and the embedded
| controller in the latter would still have a few orders of
| magnitude more transistors and be faster than it.
| bonney_io wrote:
| It's crazy that we could now build a Wii that's self-contained
| within the sensor bar...
| Sparkyte wrote:
| Don't give Nintendo any more ideas. :P
| mcphage wrote:
| Why not? That's a fantastic idea, and I'd love to see
| Nintendo do that.
| Sparkyte wrote:
| It's a running joke the internet has about Nintendo. They
| will run with ideas and sue you later.
| cushpush wrote:
| Instead of a sensor bar you can use two burning candles.
| tomtheelder wrote:
| You can what now?
| mattnewton wrote:
| the "sensor" is actually in the remote. The bar is just two
| infrared leds seperated by a known distance, that the
| infrared camera in the remote uses to figure out it's
| position.
| 0x1ch wrote:
| I play a bit of flightsim and our head tracking works the
| same way. Camera receives IR LED position for head
| movement axis, program does the interpretation of
| movement.
| extraduder_ire wrote:
| There's a homebrew head tracking demo [0] for the wii
| that has you put a sensor bar on your head, and a wiimote
| on top of your TV. I messed around with it over a decade
| ago and found it very convincing.
|
| 0: https://www.wiibrew.org/wiki/Headtracking
| 20after4 wrote:
| Very convincing indeed. IMO it's almost as good as (if
| not better than) head mounted VR goggles. At least it
| doesn't cause motion sickness.
|
| The person who came up with that idea, Johnny Lee1, went
| on to work on the xbox and I believe was also involved in
| development of the Kinect.
|
| 1. https://www.youtube.com/@jcl5m
| ladberg wrote:
| The sensor bar isn't actually a sensor, just two IR
| blasters that the cameras on the wiimotes use for
| positioning.
|
| You can use any two sources of infrared light instead!
| chabons wrote:
| Before I knew this I had someone pull out their lighter
| and point the remote at it when our sensor bar died. Took
| me a little bit to figure it out.
| eloisant wrote:
| I blame Nintendo for calling their "2 lights bar" that
| doesn't have any sensor a "sensor bar".
| hbn wrote:
| If I were to place you on a team in my company, I'd more
| likely place you in engineering than marketing :)
| burnte wrote:
| It's a bar that the sensors need to find. It's not
| optimal but it's a fine use.
| mrguyorama wrote:
| The sensor bar is ACTUALLY not two IR blasters, but two
| sets of 5 commodity IR LEDs!
|
| https://forums.dolphin-emu.org/Thread-making-a-diy-wiibar
| przemub wrote:
| The sensor bar is passive - it's just two infrared diodes
| so the Wiimote can get an idea of its own position.
|
| So you can replace it with candles as they emite infrared
| light as well!
| mock-possum wrote:
| I always thought it was hilariously similar to how to old
| NES zapper worked - the sensor was in the gun, it decided
| what you 'hit' based on what the sensor saw when the tv
| flashed. I think it was an early instance of me
| recognizing an engineering 'hack' - instead of the target
| reporting whether it had been hit, it was the gun
| reporting whether it thought it had hit the target.
| Nursie wrote:
| Yeah I was amazed when I first bought a wireless sensor
| bar, and there was nothing to plug into the console!
|
| Turns out all the smarts are in the controllers, the bar is
| just there to show a couple of fixed points for
| positioning.
| Klonoar wrote:
| For fun, go look up Johnny Lee Wiimote candles. It
| showcases it fairly well.
|
| Also man do I feel old - coming up on 15-20 years since
| that and I actually remember HN discussion about it from
| the earlier days.
| bena wrote:
| The Wii isn't that huge to start with. You also have to figure
| the Wii unit houses full optical drive as well.
|
| https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Nintendo+Wii+Teardown/812
|
| https://guide-images.cdn.ifixit.com/igi/ewv3yZPOujCRpKEj.hug...
|
| That's it. And they didn't include the controller ports and
| other bits. For instance, I don't think it has Bluetooth or
| WiFi antennas, so it can't connect to Wiimotes or a network.
|
| So if you wanted all of that back, it would be a little bigger.
| But not by much. Probably the size of the Game Boy Advance in
| the picture. If that.
|
| But if all you wanted was Smash Bros on a keychain, here you
| go.
| resters wrote:
| Making video games fun does not require anywhere near as much
| hardware as we typically use in modern systems. I look forward to
| an eventual return to fun video games.
| whalesalad wrote:
| Nintendo has been doing this ... forever? The switch is ancient
| tech, and was outdated the moment it was released.
| 0cf8612b2e1e wrote:
| Switch could definitely have used more oomph. Many frame rate
| drops in the Zelda games. Many emulators claim to have the
| superior experience with those games.
| ThatMedicIsASpy wrote:
| Which is correct. Plus a Wii game with 4k texture packs
| will look better than any HD remake
| klodolph wrote:
| I am deeply unimpressed with most of the 4K texture packs
| out there. I see a lot of this:
|
| https://twitter.com/letofski/status/982947652072488962
| andrepd wrote:
| Same. Just rendering at 1080p / 4k is good enough to give
| most titles a nicer shine though :)
| segasaturn wrote:
| Actually Nintendo consoles used to be powerhouses until
| recently. The NES, SNES, N64 and GameCube were all considered
| state-of-the-art in terms of performance. It wasn't until the
| Wii when they began cutting down on performance in favor of
| fun features like they had been doing in the handheld space.
| Keyframe wrote:
| Especially N64 - SGI indy in a small box. They did change
| the narrative after they couldn't or wouldn't compete on
| those numbers (rightfully so it turned out), however, they
| were always experimenting with controls and were highly
| influential in doing so.
|
| appropriate username, btw, but that console is for another
| topic!
| Frenchgeek wrote:
| Pretty sure the NES was designed to a price point first and
| foremost. Especially after the video game crash. Hence the
| dirt-cheap 6502 derivative in it.
| einr wrote:
| The NES -- as far as its basic hardware architecture --
| was not designed for a market where the video game crash
| had even _occurred._ It was designed for release in Japan
| in 1983 as the Famicom, undoubtedly the most powerful
| console in the market at the time -- a time where by the
| way I 'm not sure what else you would even put in a
| console other than a 6502 or Z80.
|
| If you wanted cheap above all, you could have gone for a
| plain 6502 or a cut-down variant (like the 6507 in the
| Atari VCS), but they also didn't do that -- the Ricoh
| 2A03 is a custom part that includes custom sound
| hardware.
| monocasa wrote:
| > If you wanted cheap above all, you could have gone for
| a plain 6502 or a cut-down variant (like the 6507 in the
| Atari VCS), but they also didn't do that -- the Ricoh
| 2A03 is a custom part that includes custom sound
| hardware.
|
| The higher integration on a single chip for the 2A03 was
| absolutely a cost saving move.
| Laremere wrote:
| That doesn't match my recollection. The Gameboy is a early
| counter example: it was black and white during a time where
| the game gear had color, yet the Gameboy was far more
| popular. Also I believe the Xbox was more powerful than the
| GameCube.
| mejutoco wrote:
| I remember kids with the game gear. Hardly ever saw them
| playing because of the batteries. For a portable console
| I think it was a choice on battery life.
| tadbit wrote:
| The game gear was extremely lousy to use. Too small of a
| screen, ate through batteries incredibly quickly, the
| original, external battery pack (not included) was poorly
| made and didn't help that much either.
|
| And the game selection early on was pretty lousy too.
| Sonic was only fun for a while.
|
| People are doing amazing things with game gear hardware
| as of late, though. All of that addressed spectacularly.
| stavros wrote:
| And it only took thirty-five years!
| barbecue_sauce wrote:
| Also huge in size compared to the screen dimensions.
| Could barely get my hands around it as a little kid.
|
| Then the Nomad was even bigger!
| imp0cat wrote:
| A "wall wart" power source was a necessity.
| einr wrote:
| The Game Gear didn't come out until one and a half year
| later. It's easy to see how it wasn't even remotely
| practical to release a color handheld system in 1989, and
| it's easy to argue that it wasn't practical in 1990
| either, but Sega did it anyway.
|
| So when the Game Boy came out it was easily the most
| powerful handheld system on the market (admittedly by
| virtue of being essentially the only one worth
| mentioning)
| lapetitejort wrote:
| The Atari Lynx came out a few months after the Game Boy
| with a backlit color screen
| nilamo wrote:
| And we're all still talking about that one regularly...
| barbecue_sauce wrote:
| I remember thinking the commercials made it look cool
| when I was 4 or 5 (I vividly remember some sort of
| surfing game), but then I never encountered a single
| person who owned one. Same with the TurboGrafx-16.
| JNRowe wrote:
| "Some sort of surfing game" immediately screams
| California Games1 to me. There was surfing2 plus a few
| other sports, and it is still good fun if you find
| yourself at a museum/nerd house that has one.
|
| 1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Games
|
| 2 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ql2S-wXa-H8
| imp0cat wrote:
| Also, the color screen on the Game Gear wasn't that great
| and the battery life was terrible. I think Sega had
| realized this, because later on they were selling an
| external battery pack as an official accessory.
| hansoolo wrote:
| I found my Gameboy recently, but I did not find my
| games... Sad times...
| callalex wrote:
| The game boy got almost 30hours out of 4xAA whereas the
| game gear got about an hour or two of life out of 6xAA. I
| hated that about the game gear and it meant I hardly ever
| got to play it.
| blkhp19 wrote:
| "recently" as in nearly 25 years ago
| Andrex wrote:
| Yes, in terms of their video game history, Nintendo has
| been blue ocean (2004-2024+) longer than they were red
| (1983-2003).
| to11mtm wrote:
| NES? Yes.
|
| SNES... Somewhat? I think there were tradeoffs here between
| that and the genesis; You got more colors and could get
| better sound out of the SNES... On the flip side people did
| -amazing- things with the YM2612 and for all the SNES RPG
| Soundtracks I love, they don't slap like the Streets of
| Rage series or Sanic.
|
| N64 had pretty good perf but the Cartridge format made it
| -very- expensive to do anything very fancy; this is one of
| the reasons that lots of folks feel PS1 had better looking
| games despite N64's superior specs.
|
| GameCube... Sits in a very weird spot IMO, but that whole
| generation was a bit Zany due to how everyone was
| experimenting with different 'paths to faster/better 3d'.
| Dreamcast had lots of 'special' stuff, GC was unique in
| it's own right, PS2's biggest stumble IIRC was too little
| ram for the GS...
|
| To me, the bigger 'paradigm shift' that Nintendo made with
| the Wii was preferring more COTS-y stuff versus more
| special custom things...
|
| NES had the Special Ricoh 6502 variant. SNES had the SPC.
| N64... TBH was mostly SGI based so possibly the exception.
| Gamecube had a custom GPU (Flipper)...
|
| Wii is for the most part an 'incremental' upgrade from GC
| Hardware, and the Switch uses a not-that-special Tegra
| AFAIK.
| ekianjo wrote:
| the Gamecube certainly not. it was on par with other
| consoles of the time but released later so nothing that you
| could call SOTA
| andrepd wrote:
| Nintendo's first example of this is probably the most
| famous: the Gameboy was very underpowered compared to its
| competitor and absolutely _trounced_ them on its way to
| become a household name and one of the most popular
| consoles of all time.
| ssl-3 wrote:
| Recently?
|
| My dude, the GameCube was released nearly 23 years ago.
|
| There is a wider time delta betwixt the GameCube's release
| and today than there is between the NES and the GameCube.
| alliao wrote:
| switch was ancient tech, but still predates usb-c enough that
| they're rolling their own power protocols.. hence deluge of
| broken switch on ebay with fried usb-c ports...
| Andrex wrote:
| Switch in no way predated USB-C, even talking widespread
| support... Nintendo rolled their own protocol because they
| could and USB allows for it.
| conradev wrote:
| "Yokoi said 'The Nintendo way of adapting technology is not to
| look for the state of the art but to utilize mature technology
| that can be mass-produced cheaply.' He articulated his
| philosophy of 'Lateral Thinking of Withered Technology' (Ku
| retaJi Shu noShui Ping Si Kao , Kareta Gijutsu no Suihei Shiko)
| (also translated as 'Lateral Thinking with Seasoned
| Technology'), in the book Yokoi Gunpei Game House."
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gunpei_Yokoi#Design_philosophy
| pbj1968 wrote:
| And then he got drunk and walked in front of a car.
| sanj wrote:
| This is in poor taste.
| astrange wrote:
| That's the road design's fault, not his. Japan had a very
| very high rate of pedestrian accidents back then, they
| fixed it, and they didn't do it by drinking any less or
| losing pedestrian right of way.
| thrdbndndn wrote:
| Not that matters, but according to Wikipedia he was
| killed by a passing car when inspecting an previous
| incident, presumably on road.
|
| Saying it was "road design's fault" or even implying he
| was a "pedestrian" in this context is kinda weird without
| any further explanation.
| agumonkey wrote:
| Well said. Some ingredients that were in old games has vanished
| due to the post 2000 culture, but we can go back.
| mcphage wrote:
| > Some ingredients that were in old games has vanished due to
| the post 2000 culture
|
| Hmm, like what?
| agumonkey wrote:
| One factor (surprisingly I've seen this mentioned by a
| video game guy on youtube few years ago) is the disbelief
| made by non game visual art. Game boxes, booklets, they
| bootstraped the imagination. Handmade art was 100x more
| detailed than 8bit games yet we didn't care having a low
| res 8bit characters because we were already mentally in the
| world displayed on paper.
|
| I do sincerly miss the limited rendering aspect of old
| titles. The limitations gave ways to a distinct style, and
| kept the game a game, in a strange world. It also provided
| you with some surprises.. how did they manage to pull off
| some effect on a tiny 8 or 16bit machine. Hardware of today
| removes that wonder. There's less contrast.
| kchr wrote:
| The limitations of old game platforms didn't vanish, they
| are still used (and being re-discovered by new
| generations). One of my favorite games on this side of
| the new millennium is Celeste, for example.
|
| Some indie studios are even producing new games for GBA,
| GB, NES and other platforms from the 90s, sometimes
| including booklet and packaging!
| agumonkey wrote:
| Ah fine, I lost track of the indie space. I shall resume.
| roywiggins wrote:
| There's been a bit of a "PS1 aesthetic" enthusiasm
| recently too.
| opan wrote:
| You may find TIC-80 interesting.
| smolder wrote:
| > the disbelief made
|
| I assume you mean the _suspension of disbelief_? I.e.
| immersion. Suspension is a key word there, as in, your
| disbelief is halted, allowing you to be immersed.
| solardev wrote:
| It wasn't clear from your post, but have you kept up with the
| PC indie scene of the last decade or so? There's a lot of great
| small gems on Steam these days that can run on old hardware (or
| the Deck).
|
| But apparently the golden age is ending, as big publishers this
| year and last canceled a lot of projects and closed a bunch of
| studios. Sad, but there's still a huge backlog of great titles
| to go through.
| ralusek wrote:
| Inscryption
|
| Subnautica
|
| Satisfactory
|
| Factorio
|
| Hollow Knight
|
| RE7
|
| Baba is You
|
| Baldur's Gate 3
|
| Elden Ring
|
| Dead Cells
|
| Hades
|
| Ori and the Will of the Wisp
|
| Disco Elysium
|
| Dishonored 1 & 2
|
| Orcs Must Die
|
| Planet Coaster
|
| Portal 1 & 2
|
| Read Dead Redemption 2
|
| Valheim
|
| I dont' know what you mean by "modern," but these were all
| games I enjoyed recently-ish, and I'm sure I forgot some.
| jacoblambda wrote:
| Off the top of my head I'd say to throw in Outer Wilds
| (wilds, not worlds), Tunic, The Riven remake, and The Talos
| Principle 1 & 2 as well.
| vmladenov wrote:
| The Talos Principle is phenomenal, fantastic effort by
| Croteam
| jacoblambda wrote:
| Yeah. And tbh while I enjoyed the first game quite a bit
| I was absolutely blown away by the second game. Visuals,
| OST, all the vibrant characters were absolutely
| breathtaking.
| latexr wrote:
| Fun video games never went away. Look for games by indie
| developers instead of AAA titles.
| haunter wrote:
| There are many fun AAA titles, more than one can play
| latexr wrote:
| The conversation's context is fun games without needing the
| latest hardware.
| Eji1700 wrote:
| The majority of my indie titles run on a potato.
| n_plus_1_acc wrote:
| Many indie games use Unity and have terrible performance.
| Source: I have a potato (by which i mean i use the
| integrated graphics of an i7-56xx)
|
| It can run many games well, so it depends how much
| developers value performance.
| barbecue_sauce wrote:
| As a player, I do not really value performance unless
| we're talking sub 25fps.
| n_plus_1_acc wrote:
| Same. But some titles have like 3fps (Train Valley World
| for example)
| account42 wrote:
| Performance is not just a simple number. 25 FPS with good
| frame pacing is much more enjoyable than something that
| averages 60 FPS but with individual frame times all over
| the place. That said, for first-person action games
| especially on a non-tiny monitor, anything below ~40 FPS
| will be noticeably non-smooth. Other game types have more
| tolerance, e.g. a top down strategy game could still be
| playable at ~15 FPS.
| hiccuphippo wrote:
| A lot of fun old AAA games run on potatoes. And there's
| so many of them that you won't have issues finding
| something new to you.
| squeaky-clean wrote:
| > I look forward to an eventual return to fun video games
|
| They weren't saying they wanted games that run on old
| hardware. It's just the trope of "back then hardware was
| bad and games were good. Now hardware is good and games
| are bad."
| randac wrote:
| Look at anything from publisher New Blood Interactive on
| Steam for a starting point. Mostly retro style FPS from
| differing eras, but there are a few other game types.
| Plus you'll struggle to find any that don't have
| thousands of user ratings in either very positive or
| overwhelmingly positive brackets.
|
| Gloomwood (first person stealth) and Fallen Aces are a
| couple of gems still in early access.
| BiteCode_dev wrote:
| It's actually a golden age for fun video games, because we
| are swimming in new beautiful, engaging, original titles
| every year.
|
| Some things really take you by surprise as well.
|
| I never saw Inscryption, Disco Eliseum or Hades coming, and I
| think nobody did.
|
| And even oldish games still have great value. I still play
| LoL or Isaac, and they are as good as they were on day 1.
|
| Plus, you get the Switch then the Deck refreshed portable
| gaming experience. The latter made emulation so nice as well.
|
| With terrific communities, insane speed runners, devs coming
| up with crazy new concepts and hardware that never stop to
| get better, it's hard to complain except that with a busy
| life, you will see only 1% of those masterpieces.
| tines wrote:
| Inscryption is a must play.
| BiteCode_dev wrote:
| I will remember it forever, it's a unique experience.
|
| But it's such a weird combination of aesthetic, story
| telling and gameplay I have to assume it prevents a huge
| part of the gaming population from enjoying it.
|
| If anybody read those comments, DO NOT LOOK THE GAME UP
| if you plan to play it. Go blind.
| tines wrote:
| I binged it during the time I was trapped in my room with
| COVID. You're right, it is a very weird game(s?) in the
| best way, it's literally sent me off on a card game
| design jaunt that's still ongoing haha. And I found
| myself loving the characters of the, what was it, ocelot
| and the wizard apprentice who is glad to have any kind of
| STIM-U-LA-TION?
| latexr wrote:
| > I never saw (...) Hades coming, and I think nobody did.
|
| I don't think Hades came as a surprise to anyone who was
| already a fan of the devs from Bastion and Transistor.
| BiteCode_dev wrote:
| Come on, Bastion is nice but nowhere as sophisticated as
| Hades. Neither the gameplay nor the replayability would
| have let you think the team had the ability at the time.
|
| As for transistor, the story is basically "futuristic
| world is being destroyed by virus-type-invaders and your
| sword/companion is the key to beating it", with a
| predictable end and almost zero character dev.
|
| Being able to make ok games doesn't translate to the
| skill to make a masterpiece.
|
| It was a quantum leap.
|
| It would be like saying you can deduce Divinity Original
| sin 2 would be amazing because you played the first one.
| anal_reactor wrote:
| I disagree. Sure, there are fun games, but they're so hard
| to find among all the crap
| BiteCode_dev wrote:
| The noise/signal ratio is worse for everything today:
| movies, music, tv shows.
|
| But "finding good games requires a tiny bit of effort to
| me" is a first-world problem.
| haunter wrote:
| The problem is when even Nintendo's own first party titles are
| struggling with the hardware. That wasn't that common with the
| Wii, 3DS, or previous consoles but very very very noticeable on
| Switch
| mrguyorama wrote:
| Super Mario 64 had abysmal performance for a title on the N64
| that wasn't even that complicated compared to things that
| would later release on the console.
|
| But in the 90s, when you got home with your very first device
| capable of rendering "real time" 3D graphics for $200, you
| didn't really care that "real time" meant 12fps at times. We
| used to have pretty low standards for framerate.
| scns wrote:
| One guy optimized Mario 64 to run at 60FPS:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t_rzYnXEQlE
| anthk wrote:
| Mario 64 on the N64 was build without -O2 flags. Maybe
| with -O0 or even -g. After a simple compiler switch, the
| speed skyrocketed.
| syndeo wrote:
| And from what I understand, it's not due to incompetence;
| rather, it's due to not yet having confidence that those
| optimizers wouldn't introduce bugs. The SDK and toolchain
| were very new; SM64's development itself parallels that
| of the dev toolchain.
|
| So, better safe than sorry, especially with a pack-in
| launch title.
| ThatPlayer wrote:
| Kaze, who did that 60FPS optimization, has commented on
| other videos about how the CPU isn't fully utilized
| anyways, so -O2 doesn't make too much a difference in
| most scenarios.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9_gdOKSTaxM&lc=UgyhTG4Ol4
| 6Rr...
|
| His comment, not the video.
| anthk wrote:
| Ah, TIL, thanks.
| jmdots wrote:
| I forgive them for abysmal for one of the first games
| released for a wildly new platform for them.
| BolexNOLA wrote:
| A story does not require a bunch of words either but there are
| a lot of great, long books. There are also great short stories.
|
| Same thing goes for games that demand high performance rigs.
| It's all about what you want in the end, and there's no single
| answer for what makes a game fun. Some people really like
| beautiful, realistic looking games with high resolutions and
| frame rates. To them that is fun.
| lawlessone wrote:
| Good point. Most of the games I have played in recent years
| have been indie titles. Sometimes they are CPU intensive but
| rarely GPU intensive.
|
| It feels like graphics in games have reached a sort of plateau
| now where the most visually realistic games are only marginally
| more realistic looking than something from nearly 10 years ago.
| rjh29 wrote:
| Ray tracing might be eye candy, but fast streaming of assets
| from SSD enables experiences not possible before (large scale
| open world, super fast movement a la Spiderman, instant
| teleportation).
|
| GPU-powered dynamic lighting and LOD is also pretty crazy.
| raytopia wrote:
| For handhelds I'd say the Playdate [0] does this pretty well.
| Lots of fun and very experimental indie games.
|
| For home consoles I hope a single board computer flls this role
| one day. In fact I've been experimenting with the raspberry pi
| to try and turn it into a console for new games but just
| haven't spent enough time on the project yet.
|
| [0] https://play.date/
| roxil wrote:
| "I want shorter games with worse graphics made by people who
| are paid more to work less and I'm not kidding,"
|
| It's been a meme for a while and I unironically agree.
| bscphil wrote:
| So is this project (a) taking the real Wii parts and putting them
| on a smaller PCB, (b) a different design with a more efficient
| same-architecture CPU, or (c) an entirely new design that is
| emulating the Wii hardware? Can the device run the real Wii OS or
| is it running a replacement OS capable of launching Wii games?
| sspiff wrote:
| It is based on the Wii Omega trim, which is a cut down original
| Wii motherboard removing all the non essentials.
|
| Some components in this build are reconnected to the board
| using a flexible PCB connector, but the core is just a cut down
| OEM Wii board.
| ThrowawayTestr wrote:
| There's a long history of people taking an original Wii
| motherboard and physically trimming the PCB with rotary tools
| (or a hacksaw) to put them in smaller enclosures, usually to
| make them portable.
| yincrash wrote:
| Check out the short stack GitHub for an overview of how a
| previous mod was done. Literally chopping up the motherboard to
| the bare minimum then adding back things with daughterboards
| https://github.com/loopj/short-stack
| lhnz wrote:
| Is this something you'd need to download and install ROMs to use?
| thenewnewguy wrote:
| You could rip Wii games that you own the physical disk for.
| skeaker wrote:
| No need to download if you've got physical copies. A hacked Wii
| (which is simple to set up nowadays) can easily dump your games
| to a usable legal ROM.
| latexr wrote:
| Using Nintendo's branding in the box seems ill-advised. That's
| giving Nintendo more fodder for the eventual lawsuit.
| notum wrote:
| Isn't this using Nintendo hardware as well? I thought that was
| the point of these minification projects.
| numpad0 wrote:
| Doesn't matter. Reselling a modified brand product can count
| as counterfeiting. Legal conditional checks don't always
| coincide with human instinctive one, law is code too after
| all.
| rustcleaner wrote:
| This is why juries must be instructed on nullification.
| It's The People's protection against money's use of
| criminal lawfare.
| PhasmaFelis wrote:
| Historically, it's also been very useful when you want to
| murder a black person and get away with it in front of an
| all-white Southern jury.
|
| Nullification is no more _inherently_ righteous than a
| butcher knife.
| pbj1968 wrote:
| Ah yes, the delicious false equivalence.
| theultdev wrote:
| What you are referencing is an edge case (and an old one
| at that).
|
| A more recent one is the OJ trial.
|
| But those are perfect examples of bad jurors.
|
| It's up to you and your peers to be good jurors.
|
| What system do you suggest?
| PhasmaFelis wrote:
| It's all an edge case. Nullification isn't an intended
| right, it's an unavoidable loophole. It's the necessary
| consequence of a system where no one is allowed to tell a
| juror how to vote or demand that they justify their
| decision: there's no way to maintain those requirements
| and _also_ punish jurors for ignoring the law completely,
| so we just ask them to pretty please not do that.
|
| And that's fine. It's certainly better than letting
| anyone legally pressure jurors. Democracy and freedom are
| all about compromise. I'm just saying, it's not
| corruption for judges to prefer jurors who don't ignore
| the law.
| rustcleaner wrote:
| IMO the biggest role of the jury is to blackball the
| state's conveyer belt to imprisonment on a case-by-case
| basis. It really needs to become harder than it is for
| the state to put someone in a concrete and iron box.
| autoexec wrote:
| Ultimately it just means that we have a way to make sure
| that We the People aren't being punished by laws that we
| don't consent to being held to.
|
| It puts power directly into the hands of the typical
| American citizen, which is why our legal system is
| terrified of it. You don't have to be rich or well-
| connected to sit on a jury. It also effectively limits
| what can be done using that power to what a "random" (and
| presumably representative) selection of the community
| agrees to. That's what a "jury of your peers" was
| supposed to be all about.
|
| I'd say that nullification makes it possible for people
| to truly govern themselves and that makes it an
| inherently righteous system.
|
| It's the righteousness of the people who make up a
| community that is questionable, but even imperfect people
| deserve democracy and the right to self-govern.
| talldayo wrote:
| Lawsuit to what? Their CAD files, the build instructions? The
| board shipped with the Nintendo Wii?
| shakna wrote:
| Reusing branding always opens you up to liability. There are
| a lot of angles that you wouldn't expect, that trademark can
| be used to attack you with. And Nintendo are very hostile to
| any and all uses.
| peanutz454 wrote:
| While Nintendo might not lose the trademark entirely if
| they don't sue, they could risk weakening its strength,
| therefore they have to sue in this case.
|
| Consistent inaction against infringers can lead to the
| public perceiving the trademark as less distinctive. This
| can make it harder to protect the trademark in the future,
| and can encouraging further infringement.
| root_axis wrote:
| Use of Nintendo's trademarked branding.
| wyldfire wrote:
| Using the word "nintendo" on something intended to play any
| kind of games is trademark infringement. The Kawaii devs
| likely don't intend to confuse people, but if a consumer saw
| this product for sale they'd rightly assume it's a Nintendo
| product.
|
| Using a brand name like this just makes things easier when
| Nintendo attorneys barely have to roll out of bed when
| sending a cease and desist order.
|
| Just call it Kawaii and stay slightly under the radar. Sadly,
| Nintendo will probably come for you anyways.
| RajT88 wrote:
| Some of these console mods only really get sold as kits or
| products on places like Aliexpress.
|
| Needless to say, they are pretty safe from Nintendo. If
| these guys aren't selling the schematics, and posting them
| for free, Nintendo has a lot less of a leg to stand on.
| latexr wrote:
| Nintendo is notoriously litigious. It is naive to think
| you're "pretty safe" from them. If they want to sue you,
| they will, and could bankrupt you with the legal fees
| alone.
|
| And they _will_ use the logo as a way in.
|
| https://retrocomputing.stackexchange.com/questions/11736/
| why...
| jrockway wrote:
| Many years ago I bought an Intel processor. It came with a
| sticker inside a book that was several pages of terms and
| conditions on what the sticker can be stuck on. Mentioned
| as something not to do was applying the sticker to a
| computing device that did not contain an Intel processor,
| so I immediately stuck it on my Switch.
|
| Still not in prison.
| weberer wrote:
| Well it is a modded Wii. Its not like they're taking some
| other SoC and putting an emulator on it.
| ssl-3 wrote:
| It appears that they're gathering orders for to do a group-
| buy of a custom-machined aluminum shell for the keychain
| widget, and that this newly-minted custom-machined hunk of
| aluminum includes the a replication of the Nintendo logo.
|
| That's commerce.
|
| Now, obviously: Their target market knows exactly what
| they're buying, and they aren't going to be confused by any
| of this at all.
|
| But trademark law (and the surrounding case law) may not see
| it that way.
|
| It's easier (and a lot less fear-inducing) to cease-and-
| desist _before_ Nintendo 's IP lawyers send a nastygram than
| it is to do so afterward. (And in order to keep their
| trademark intact, they pretty much _have to_ send that
| nastygram. Trademarks are very much a defend-it-or-lose-it
| thing.)
|
| ---
|
| "Sorry guys, the first order had to be scrapped along with
| all of the money we collected and spent on it. If anyone is
| still interested, the price is still $55 for a shell without
| the logo if we can get another 30 orders in again."
| kyleyeats wrote:
| It might not work without the Nintendo logo.
| lawlessone wrote:
| very funny :)
| wengo314 wrote:
| in case you don't know, some Gameboy games required to have
| Nintendo logo in the game data as part of copy protection.
| allegedly that was legal protection against bootlegs.
|
| https://www.copetti.org/writings/consoles/game-boy/#anti-
| pir...
|
| Playstation2 used something similar. (
| https://github.com/mlafeldt/ps2logo )
|
| I suppose it gave companies in question additional legal
| leverage - they could not distribute copies of games
| without violating the trademark laws.
| pininja wrote:
| I wonder if there's a reusable Nintendo logo they could extract
| from the Wii enclosure? It's incredible how upcyclable the Wii
| is.
| latexr wrote:
| That makes zero difference. You aren't suddenly allowed to
| use someone else's branding just because you're reusing a
| piece of branding from a product.
| parl_match wrote:
| I'm looking for recommendations for a 30~50 run anodized aluminum
| case, in a similar size as the Kawaii. Does anyone have any
| recommendations? The quotes I'm getting are closer to $95/pc and
| that seems quite high.
| ryukoposting wrote:
| The price for a small-batch run is going to depend heavily upon
| how difficult it is to manufacture at small scale. If you got
| that $95 quote from a local shop, you can try asking them what
| you can do to make it cheaper. There might be some tricky
| features in your design that are jacking up the labor costs.
|
| The cheapest way to make a small-batch aluminum enclosure is
| probably to base it off an off-the-shelf extrusion stock. I'd
| go on McMaster and find some C-channel stock that fits my
| needs, then I'd design a base plate that nests inside the
| C-channel. If you're trying to go for an upscale, professional
| look, you can have the machine shop run a wire wheel over the
| C-channel before anodizing it.
| frickinLasers wrote:
| Have you tried https://www.xometry.com/ ?
|
| They have a network of vetted shops who bid on jobs when
| otherwise unoccupied.
| hatsunearu wrote:
| The "Thundervolt" reference in that post is a project where they
| cut up a Wii PCB to leave just the DRAM and the processors on the
| PCB, and then they slap an external DCDC board on top of that cut
| up PCB to provide power to it, while also undervolting it since
| you reduce the IR losses.
|
| https://bitbuilt.net/forums/index.php?threads/thundervolt.62...
|
| That is pretty insane.
| 01HNNWZ0MV43FF wrote:
| IR losses? Never heard that one
| 0l wrote:
| I believe he means I2R losses in resistive elements
| mikepurvis wrote:
| Which would reduce heat and therefore make it easier to
| cool in a small form factor.
| NavinF wrote:
| No I think he literally means IR losses. ie voltage droop
| V=IR
|
| Modern VRMs also reduce output voltage when the CPU draws
| more current. That way when the CPU later draws less
| current, the voltage doesn't inductively spike up and
| damage the CPU. Overclockers call this LLC (load line
| calibration), but don't google that because electrical
| engineers don't use that term and most articles and reddit
| threads explain this ass-backwards. Google "Active Voltage
| Positioning" instead to find correct documentation.
|
| If your VRM is close to the chip, voltage droop will be ~0
| and LLC can be ~0. This allows you to undervolt more and
| save power without instability. This is probably why most
| server CPUs have voltage conversion inside the chip (FIVR,
| Fully integrated voltage regulators)
| Nition wrote:
| Here's some more info on the motherboard and what can be
| trimmed off and/or replaced:
| https://bitbuilt.net/forums/index.php?threads/wii-motherboar...
| Eduard wrote:
| is there a goal in undervolting? Is it about minimizing the
| energy consumption of a Wii system? If so, how much did they
| save?
| Cloudef wrote:
| The kawaii forum post says the undervolting allows them to
| passively cool the wii
| monocasa wrote:
| At this point I'm a bit surprised that nobody has created a
| netlist of the board and simply reinstalled the relevant chips
| on it. There has to be more density that can be eked out for
| easier that way than carefully taking a Dremel to an existing
| board.
| maronato wrote:
| There are a few reasons for it: - the cut board is compact
| enough for most/all hobby projects
|
| - you can get Wiis for very cheap nowadays, perhaps cheaper
| than the parts themselves
|
| - the original board makes heavy use of serpentine tracks. If
| they are not just to equalize track length, it'd be very hard
| to account for all delays in a redesign.
|
| ofc I'm not a part of the community so their reasons might be
| complete different
| ThrowawayTestr wrote:
| The Wii has got be the most hacked (literally!) console ever.
| anthk wrote:
| Not even close. That would be the Play Station or the Play
| Station 2.
| pessimizer wrote:
| Don't forget the Dreamcast. It got hacked on more than it got
| played.
| klik99 wrote:
| It was def the dreamcast - the first model didn't require
| any hardware, just a burned CD-ROM. It's demise and Segas
| departure from consoles is blamed on the amount of piracy.
| A real shame, because it had some great games
| bpye wrote:
| The Dreamcast GPU was also really neat. It was tile based
| and could do order independent transparency!
| jyrkesh wrote:
| One thing I was found interesting about Dreamcast piracy
| was that everyone was burning them onto 700 MB CD-Rs. But
| the retail games were actually pressed onto 1GB GD-ROMs:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GD-ROM
|
| For a lot of games, it totally didn't matter (shoutout
| Ikaruga, 38 MBs!
| https://www.thedreamcastjunkyard.co.uk/2023/03/the-
| worlds-sm...)
|
| But for games that took advantage of the extra 300 MBs,
| pirates had to use all these tricks to get the game down
| to a CD-R size. They'd compress assets, compress or
| sometimes rip out the FMVs...I think they might have even
| split some games across multiple CDs.
|
| That's why DRM cracks me up, the pirates will always
| figure a way around it one way or the other. (Especially
| in today's day and age where the live service model is so
| effective. I'd weep for the AAA single-player game, but I
| can't remember the last one I played and enjoyed. They've
| been dead for a long time. Long live the indie single-
| player game.)
| ThrowawayTestr wrote:
| Are there a lot of mods that literally hack up the mobo? I
| haven't seen many portable ps2s.
| jyrkesh wrote:
| For pirating games: PS1, PS2, Dreamcast, for sure
|
| For straight up modding: definitely the Xbox. The 007 and
| Mechwarrior bugs blew everything wide open, and the fact that
| it was just a PC with real (upgradeable!) storage spawned
| projects like XBMC, now known as Kodi:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kodi_(software)
|
| And also piracy was rampant, but not the Swapmagic or Modchip
| kind. You could just upgrade the drive, _backup_ your games
| on there, and play 'em all of the drive.
|
| The Wii and 3DS are also suuuuper open and hackable though.
| The homebrew scenes on both are incredibly impressive, not to
| mention the whole ecosystem of full blown launchers and
| shells and stuff. (Which, now that I think about it, was also
| a big deal on Xbox.)
| anthk wrote:
| On the XBOX, I wish PostmarketOS supported it. I know, x86,
| not x86_64, but it's still a nice platform to have. With
| the 128MB addon, Alpine/Linux/PmOS can do tons of things
| with the forked dillo (light HTTP/S | Gopher | Gemini
| client, a musis/video player with MPV, light office with
| Abiword/Gnumeric, a rescue system in case of something bad
| happens on the main PC, retrogaming with emulators, ScummVM
| (it will work with tinyGL)...
| VyseofArcadia wrote:
| Does it count if you need to plug it into an external dock to
| play?
| Neywiny wrote:
| I'm thinking similarly. But you don't need GameCube controllers
| to use a wii. I think that's all the dock adds.
| HanayamaTriplet wrote:
| You can't use the base unit by itself - according to the
| specs from the link, the dock has the actual power input and
| A/V output connectors.
| prmoustache wrote:
| Basically they cheated.
| ivanbakel wrote:
| The discussion in the forum points out that the Kawaii
| doesn't come with any wireless capabilities (they're all
| trimmed off the board), so unless the console is docked, you
| seemingly can't control it at all. Perhaps you could come up
| with a separate controller connector that mates with the
| plugs on the console without the rest of the dock.
| Neywiny wrote:
| That's fair. So then yeah I guess the dock is needed.
| Considering it didn't look that big, if I bought one of
| these I'd probably want it integrated instead.
| Mogzol wrote:
| The point of this project is more about squeezing the Wii
| into the smallest possible footprint rather than making
| it convenient to use. If you wanted something similar
| with ports integrated though, check out the GC Nano
| (which despite looking like a Gamecube has Wii
| internals), or Short Stack.
|
| GC Nano:
| https://bitbuilt.net/forums/index.php?threads/gc-nano-
| the-wo...
|
| Short Stack:
| https://bitbuilt.net/forums/index.php?threads/short-
| stack-th...
| Nursie wrote:
| I think if you could give the unit power, get a video
| signal out, and control it somehow, it would feel more
| complete. It's an amazing little device but if it really
| can't be used at all without the dock... does it count as
| the smallest?
|
| As someone who is absolutely not part of that scene, I
| obviously don't get a say in that.
| Andrex wrote:
| Because it works on its own, I consider the Short Stack
| the more impressive project.
|
| Both are super exciting though. Maybe a few years down
| the line, we get some 2" LCDs integrated or something for
| truly portable play.
| starkparker wrote:
| The "dock" could just be a 7" display, controllers, and a
| power input. Not fully wireless but certainly handheld.
| Could even give it a catchy name, like "Wii You".
| djmips wrote:
| Dock with USB-C power input, x4 GCC controller ports,
| composite/component video output, & stereo audio output
| Nursie wrote:
| This is absolutely lovely work, and the whole trim concept is
| mindblowing.
|
| Buuuut yeah I thought similarly - there's no video output,
| power input or any way to connect controllers without that
| dock.
|
| Compare it to one of the other tiny builds -
| https://github.com/loopj/short-stack - which seems to support
| wireless remotes, has HDMI and takes USB-C for power.
| enragedcacti wrote:
| In case the scale renderings weren't illustrative, this is just
| how small the GC Nano is
| https://www.reddit.com/r/Gamecube/comments/13u8km5/worlds_sm...
| redundantly wrote:
| Thank you. I was confused by the renders on the page.
| maxglute wrote:
| Seems... large? I was expecting something substantially smaller
| than a flip foldable phone.
| Nursie wrote:
| That's not the Kawaii though, a little under halfway down the
| linked article, there's a size comparison between the GC Nano
| and the Kawaii -
| https://bitbuilt.net/forums/index.php?threads/kawaii.6474/
| Izkata wrote:
| The base is the same size, still quite large for being
| called "keychain-sized".
| remram wrote:
| Wallet-sized, I guess.
|
| 60x60x16mm, so it is 20% smaller than a credit card (in
| surface area)
| skeaker wrote:
| It's about the size of just the screen of a GBA. It's
| shorter than your smartphone. You could absolutely hang
| that from a keychain at that size, even if it wouldn't
| really make sense to.
| GrantMoyer wrote:
| For reference, 60mm is less than the width of even a compact
| smartphone, and 16mm is 1.5 to 2 times as thick. This thing is
| tiny.
|
| Hell, it has about the same footprint as a gamecube _disc_.
| bpye wrote:
| It's a hair smaller than a stack of 4 UMDs, the media the PSP
| used.
| zamadatix wrote:
| Or for some more common comparables: a bit less than the area
| of a credit card with a depth slightly less than the width of a
| dime.
| Reason077 wrote:
| There should be an ongoing contest to see who can produce the
| smallest functional miniaturisations of Nintendo Wii and other
| consoles. For science!
| IAmPym wrote:
| It's not called the Kawii?
| efilife wrote:
| Why Kawii? Kawaii is japanese for cute
| bigstrat2003 wrote:
| Because then it would be a better pun on "Wii". I also
| thought that "kawaii" was kind of a missed opportunity,
| personally. I would've gone for "kawaii" or something.
| glandium wrote:
| I would have gone with Kawawii, which would sound like
| Fujimori Shinjo's kawauine
| efilife wrote:
| Why am I downvoted for asking a question ffs, reddit
| mentality
| Bartkusa wrote:
| I would've chosen "Key-wii".
| sam_perez wrote:
| The name is so close to being truly perfect, but I guess being
| just a little bit off is a perk here?
| chefandy wrote:
| It's cute, but personally I'd have gone for WiiChain or
| Nintendo Wee.
| hencoappel wrote:
| Not WeeWii?
| chefandy wrote:
| Solid option!
| th4tg41 wrote:
| I'm a complete sucker for retrogaming stuff and I. Want. That.
| jhatemyjob wrote:
| Is there anyone out there that will make a GC Nano for a fee?
| Don't have time / skillz to do this myself but I want one
| prmoustache wrote:
| I would say that it is just a bad idea for a start unless you
| plan to use wireless controllers.
|
| With cable connected one you are just looking for a console
| that would be dragged left and right every time you pull a bit
| with the controller.
| jhatemyjob wrote:
| This is an insane response. This does not concern me at all
| and has nothing to do with what I said.
| Razengan wrote:
| +99 points for the name
| grishka wrote:
| Feels like the logical next step would be to ditch the stock
| motherboard altogether and make a custom one that you transfer
| the chips onto.
| nsteel wrote:
| That's https://bitbuilt.net/forums/index.php?threads/nintendo-
| vegas...
|
| I don't think it's worth the huge amount of effort extra
| compared to a simple trim.
| clemiclemen wrote:
| This is very impressive but I think Short-Stack [1] is a more
| impressive project because it is a fully fonctionnal Wii (as in,
| it works on its own as you would expect from a regular Wii)
| compared to this one where it needs other accessories to be able
| to play.
|
| [1]: https://github.com/loopj/short-stack previously discussed 3
| months ago here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40071826
| jonathanyc wrote:
| > fully fonctionnal Wii (as in, it works on its own as you
| would expect from a regular Wii) compared to this one where it
| needs other accessories to be able to play.
|
| I don't believe the Wii you linked includes an IR bar, which is
| what your statement led me to expect.
| windowshopping wrote:
| How can they make a Nintendo-labeled product like this without
| being sued?
| LZ_Khan wrote:
| Kind of mad it's not called Kawa-wii
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