Feature: Public Roundtable #2

You get a say on gaming's most important issues.

Contributed to by the CE forum members

Nintendo of Japan recently trademarked some new names, including 'CommanderPack', 'Peach Hime' (Peach Princess in English), 'Manebito/Camera' and 'Ningen-Copy/Manebito'. Big clues for games to come? Our forum members pick their heads and muse a little for us.

Why do you think Nintendo have registered these names? What sort of games do you think Nintendo have up their sleeves?

Shenlong:

I think it'll be something like the Eye Toy, and I reckon it'll almost certainly be useable with Stage Debut. It's not what I was hoping for, (if this is the ground breaking perhiperal), but I believe it will be great fun, and with games like Wario Ware - this little camera would surely own all!

Tarantino:

After hearing "CommanderPack" the first thing I thought of was Advance Wars: Under Fire, maybe this will result in a limited edition version of the game, with some free with a few added extras or maybe even a limited edition controller for the game like that game for the Xbox (the name won't come to be at the moment) with the extremely large controller.

Peach Hime has obviously got something to do with the princess Peach but what could it be, may she is getting her own game but why would Nintendo do that? It would not appeal to many and the name has no selling power. I personally think it has something to do with Mario 128, maybe we're expecting the return of the "Sorry Mario But The Princess Is In Another Castle" phrase!!

"Manebito/Camera" has been talked a lot about been similar to the Eyes Toy; I personally don't think Nintendo want anyone to think they copied Sony, Nintendo are supposedly known for their innovation and doing this would take away from that. Ningen-Copy/Manebito will probably work in conjunction with the Manebito/Camera peripheral or will possibly be the first game that will be available for it when it is released!

|darkmagic|:

Well, I think that these new trademarks and the new Gamecube add-on are linked, as most of us already do too. The camera one is bound to be a EyeToy rip-off but with a Nintendo spin on it... but who says the camera one is for the Gamecube? It could be for the NDS or GBA, like the Gameboy Camera...

Mr_Odwin:

To me it sounds like Nintendo are branching out into other areas. CommanderPack will almost certainly be some sort of strap-on rocket pack. Nintendo is thus attacking the commercial airline business with this new product.

As for Manebito; to me this conjures up images of a caged man. Nintendo deliver a man in a cage to your front room. You don't feed him and this results in anyone walking too close to the cage being bitten. If the bite is successful the caged man may live longer due to the nourishment provided by human flesh. The name Manebito is a contraction of the phrase 'Man, he bite you'. (I hope you're joking- Conor)

EEVILMURRAY:

When I see this article I immediately think Red Herring. Like Nintendo are drawing us away from whatever they're cooking up down in Japan. But that could just be me getting paranoid. Commanderpack - Lot of speculation about Advance Wars. Could be misplaced. Could not be, might involve a completely different game. But what I think it might be is some sort of army related object that melds nicely with the game it accompanies. Like a steering wheel for racing or even the bongos for the recent Donkey Konga. It could just be a fancy name for bundle pack they bring out with an army bandana. Time will tell.

Peach Hime - It has to be something to do with our main mistress Peach. But why has "peach princess" only being trademarked now? She's been around since the days of Mario 64. This has to be something special Manebito/Camera - People are suggesting either an Eyetoy style object or a camera like the Game Boy one. Not a lot else can be drawn from it.

Rickoss:

While a lot of rumours suggest "CommanderPack" is part of Advance Wars: Under Fire, I think it's much more likely to be a European/American name for the upcoming Odama; as much as I prefer the Japanese name, I could never see it becoming a household name (although admittedly CommaderPack is a little 'odd').

As for "Peach Hime", I can't see it being anything more than something that got passed by on Nintendo's to-do list, it hardly seems like it could lead to anything at all, a solo Peach game is very unlikely so I hardly think it's too conspicuous a trademark.

Remember Stage Debut's mysterious peripheral that was going to be revealed at this year's E3, then did a Super Mario 128 and got pulled out at the last second? I have a feeling that both 'Manebito/Camara' and 'Ningen-Copy/Manebito' have something to do with it. When Stage Debut was first shown off, one of the main focuses was on the use of your own face on your character, and a camera to capture that would be needed. It seems all-too convenient to be coincidence, and I hope to be saying "I told you so" come next year's E3.

YenRug:

OK, here's my take on what possible things we could be looking at, with Nintendo's latest copyrights.

"COMMANDERPACK" "COMMANDER" and "MISSION".

Main thing to remember is that these copyrights could just as easily about components for other developers to work with. My take on these three are that they are some kind of controller extensions/add-ons.

My guess would be that the "COMMANDER" is a microphone headset and voice recognition software suite, allowing the player to issue voice commands to other units/characters in the game. Advance Wars and Resident Evil 4 (when you find the President's daughter, you could give her voice commands when she's with you) could both take advantage of this.

"MISSION" could well be an extra action/control button controller, giving you extra buttons that can be easily used without taking your hand off the GC joypad. Imagine a hemisphere with the four quadrants making up extra buttons, you could easily tap one with a knuckle, or even use your feet. Would be useful in something like Advance Wars, allowing you to create groups of units and assigning them to quick button presses for easy reselection.

"COMMANDERPACK", I think will simply be the single sale set of these two peripherals together. My guess is that you could buy them individually, or as a combined set, and this would be the brandname for that combined set.

"Manebito/Camera" and "Ningen-Copy/Manebito".

Again, this is one of those things where it could be talking about the software suite for other developers to use.

"Manebito/Camera" is likely to be Nintendo's version of the Sony EyeToy. You see yourself on screen and the GC interacts with you when playing games.

"Ningen-Copy/Manebito" is potentially the more interesting one, from the translations. I think what you could get here is movement recognition software that ties in with the camera. You won't see yourself on screen, instead there will be a character that you control by carrying out various actions; say in a boxing game, you could swing punches at different levels and the GC will figure out where they're falling and speed will relate to how hard you punch, you would then see your onscreen boxer carrying out those punches. This would be more the software suite that developers could bolt into their own games.

Hellfire:

I don't really like speculating, so I won't say what it might be. Commander could be the DS microphone, who knows? (The DS microphone is in-built - Conor) Remember that Nintendo had a camera in the making long before Eyetoy, so if someone's copying, it's Sony. About Peach Hime, maybe they're just registering Peach's name, because it wasn't registered before. They might also be throwing dust to people's eyes to destract them from something. Who knows.

Captain_Falcon:

The hard part is deciding what console/handheld they are going to be used for.

The Peach thing sounds like some sort of gimmick game which will be mainly aimed at women, probably only released in Japan.

CommanderPack - when I first saw this, I thought of some sort of Lightgun 6 in 1 game. Like what the Snes had, could be since Gamecube doesn't seem to have any lightgun games (if it does, I haven't seen them) but the PS2 has many. I sort of doubt it will be a lightgun though

Camera - the Game Boy camera seemed pretty popular on Game Boy Color, since Advance hasn't had one yet this could be a GBA camera; either that or it would be Nintendo's version of the eyetoy.


That's all for this week's edition. Be sure to check out the Gamecube Forum for the next topic, and your name could be here next Saturday. Didn't contribute? You can still post your thoughts below.


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