Viva Pinata Almost Made DS – 360 Connectivity Happen
By Chris on Tuesday, May 20th, 2008 at 7:02 PM PST In Game Companies, Game Consoles, Game Platforms, Games, Microsoft, Nintendo, Portable, THQ
It’s strange enough seeing a Microsoft game in Viva Pinata appear on the Nintendo DS, but imagine if there was some connectivity between the two platforms’ versions of the game. It also happened, reports MTV Multiplayer, thanks to the Xbox Live Vision camera.
Viva Pinata: Trouble in Paradise features Vision cam support that I’d label as a major gimmick: hold up a collectible Viva Pinata trading card, and the camera can read a code from the card and grant you something in game. When Rare told Stephen Totilo that this technology could also read codes off an iPod or a Zune, the pieces were there.
Microsoft has had trouble getting the kids market that Nintendo so effectively courts to buy kid-friendly Xbox 360 games, such as Viva Pinata. The DS is popular with kids. Rare just announced this month that a version of Viva Pinata for the DS has just been completed. The VP game on the DS seems like the perfect agent to sell the series to those Nintendo kids. And now, with this camera feature in the 360 sequel, Microsoft has a way to connect DS Pinata gamers to Xbox 360s, for actual gameplay incentives.
It’s simple; you’d have an image displayed on the DS, which you would hold up to the Vision cam, and there you go: the DS and 360 working together.
Unfortunately, while it turns out that the developers had worked on this, it was simply too late to implement the feature. A Trouble in Paradise developer said, “It’s one of those things where you just kick yourself.”
I would’ve laughed.
Wow, just imagine how great it would be to have a next gen console and a handheld interacting like this. That thing where you show cards to the camera and it registers in the game sounds awesome as well.
God I wish Sony would do some of this stuff because they are really being left behind
@Norbit….
The DS and the Wii are able to interact with each other via WiFi. If you download the Nintendo Channel you can use that channel to download DS game demos. You download them to your Wii and then via WiFi the game gets transfered over to the DS. It’s pretty neat.
Go Marlins!!!!
@ ManOfTeal
By suggesting Sony were behind in these areas I was being more than a little sarcastic
The way the PSP and PS3 link up is unparalleled in gaming while the Eye Of Judgment already uses the card scanning function being talked about in this story.
To me, the connectivity between the DS and Wii is a lot less complicated than the connectivity between the PSP and the PS3…..at least it is when I connect them together…The PSP connection is sluggish and times out often, the DS connection has always been seamless…..go figure.
Go Marlins!!!!
You really are something else
Do you actually believe this crap? Are you that ignorant?
Do you seriously think the DS-Wii linkup is better than PSP-PS3?
If so you have obviously have absolutely no idea about what the PSP and PS3 can do
@Norbit
Were you abused as a child? Did daddy touch you in your no-no spot? I ask because I’m trying to find out what in the hell would cause a human being to be such an asshole. Do you just like to fight? Seriously????
Go Marlins!!!!