Well, for now anyway. Producer Yoshinori Ono says “lag will be a huge problem for online play,” and that eliminating lag will be tougher for the Street Fighter IV team than it was for devs working on Soul Calibur and Virtua Fighter, adding “It’s quite difficult for 3D Street Fighter at the moment.”

Unfortunately Ono’s current answer to the problem sounds more confused than hopeful: “we’re thinking about trying to balance it up at user interface level and input timing by using joystick or something like that.” Oh ok, that makes perfect sense. Wait, what?

Lag has always been a sore spot for gamers, and especially for fighting game fans (as any hardcore Super Smash Bros Brawl will let you know). Capcom is dedicated to delivering great multiplayer experiences though, so I have faith in them.

[videogaming247]

In an admission many have probably been waiting a long time to hear, Nintendo president Satoru Iwata says “I don’t think the current system we have with friend codes is perfect.” After making this statement, he still wanted to make it clear that Nintendo’s online policy is concerned first and foremost with safety and “a world where we can assure that there will be no harassment for these online beginners.

There are no details as to what changes are being proposed, but Iwata says “we will be studying this on an ongoing basis,” hinting at some small improvements at least. What do you think could be done? Perhaps they could implement some parental controls that could lock or unlock restrictions on talking/interacting with non-friends?

[Kotaku]

Capcom have only gone and revealed ANOTHER trailer for their bad ass forthcoming next-gen survival horror. Resident evil 5 is the game that just keeps on giving…

I have no idea who the Metal Gear Solid Naomi-esque lady is, or the hooded assistant. One thing I did notice though was that the hooded assistant appears to be female. I could be wrong, but I noticed the hooded figure had heels on as they jumped into the boat, had a woman’s chin and mouth when sat in the truck and had a woman’s walk as she left a room with the Naomi-esuqe lady. Could it be Sherry Birkin? The mind boggles. But I get the feeling that the hooded figure is of some importance or relevance. More than the trailer would have us believe.

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We are less than a few weeks away from the premier of the MapleStory anime, the character designs recently got released and frankly, we’re scared. These look like anything but MapleStory characters! With these kind of characters, HoboStory would be a much more fitting name.

This is really shocking because the game’s strongest point was its chibi, cute, cliche’d anime-ish designs, actually it wasn’t its biggest point, it was its only point. Now don’t get me wrong, a series about a bunch of hobos caught in a grindfest world, killing pigs in armor and jumping around sounds awesome, but not like this!

Wolf Quest, a new game where kids play as wolves, hunting, mating, peeing and fighting for turfs. Online play teams up kids along the US in wolf packs, teaching them the virtues of working in group in order to protect their territory and killing your prey. Or at least that’s what they will have you believe!

But not us, right? We can see through the facade, through the smoke and mirrors. This isn’t a game to teach kids to respect the wild, this is  furry recruitment tool! Another sneaky move by the furry militia to start them off young.

The game is coming out this December, but the war could come soon after that. When you see little Timmy bust out his fursuit, you’ll know who to blame.

This week Nintendo of America’s president, Reggie Fils Fils-Aime, seen above giving the crazy eye to Newsweek’s N’Gai Croal, announced Nintendo’s plans to launch a platform where indie and big developers alike can launch new games to be downloaded via the Wii’s Shop Channel.

The service, called WiiWare, is Nintendo’s answer to Microsoft’s Xbox Live and Sony’s Playstation Network. Many will remember hints of this where stated by Nintendo last year. The games will be priced by Nintendo in coordination with the developer or the publisher, there has been no price range announced but expect it to be pretty competitive with the competition.

It really sounds too good to be true, as Reggie put it, ”WiiWare content is new content. It can come from Reggie’s Videogame Garage or from EA”, but don’t get too excited, if you were planning to start coding right away keep in mind that Nintendo wont do much for your game until you have secured an ESRB rating for your game, no AO rated games though (sorry Rockstar). Be on the lookout for the first WiiWare titles come 2008.

[Newsweek]

So during GDC Miyamoto announced a new Wii channel that will let people compare their Miis in a popularity contest. This wont just be limited to your own Mii but your little avatar will be competing against other Miis from around the globe in what can only be described as the Wii’s Hot or Not.

That’s what this is. Just wait for it people, soon everyone else with your Wii’s friend code will be sending your messages asking you to rate them. So we might just as well get over it now, above you can see me and Fadsy battling it out in the ultimate sexy race, so who’s hot, who’s not?

Note: Height in this image is proportional to ego. In real life Fadsy is probably much taller than me.

[Kotaku]

I know it’s a bit late to review this game, but heck, here it goes!

Pangya.

The name doesn’t tell you anything until you see it in action.

It’s a Golf game. . . “A GOLF game, Velcor?” you must ask. “Golf games are the lame excuse for your parents to show you they “support you” on videomaes when Christmas comes” is a very well known phrase. . .I used to use it to, until I played PANGYA. . .

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While doing an interview with GamePro, George Harrison, Vice President of Marketing and Corporate Communications, said that the Wii version of Twilight Princess will eventually have new content delivered online. Specifically “downloadable content, such as additional levels”, the episodic nature of this downloads has not been confirmed though. Harrison also confirmed that the game provides over 70 hours of gameplay and a world several times larger than Ocarina of Time.

This is something completely new for Zelda games, how will downloadable content work with a game who’s story is usually quite dogmatic? or are we talking just an extra pond to fish in?

[GamePro]

Joystiq reports that hidden at the bottom of an IGN preview for Tony Hawk’s Downhill Jam are some terrible news for the Wii launch line-up. Apparently Nintendo doesn’t plan on releasing the software libraries necessary for 3rd parties to include online functionality into their games. The IGN article said:

Gamers hoping for an online component, however, are in for bad news, because one isn’t planned. Activision would not say why, but IGN has separately learned from multiple development sources that Nintendo will not release Wii Wi-Fi Connection libraries to third parties until early 2007, which means that no third party launch title will have an online mode.

That really comes as a shock, not as big as the PS3 not being in production yet, but still quite a surprise. The online component for the Wii is without a doubt one of its major assets. I’m reluctant to believe that Nintendo has not released said libraries to anyone, perhaps a special deal with some developers? I hope so, otherwise this is a kick in the gut to the 3rd party launch line-up

[Joystiq]