Read my post above for the reason why that is. As for the microcode, a few devs will get it if they don't have it already.

eh...for some reason I just can't get excited about this game. I hope for that to change whenever the reviews start coming out for it, but for now it's definitely a 'wait and see' for me. Now Super Paper Mario on the other hand, I'm so fuckin stoked for.

To me this gravity-bending gameplay makes *more* sense than the previous 3D Mario games, where the camera and controls seemed way to complex for the relatively strait-forward level design. I didn't understand what going to full-3D really added to the game/gameplay, which is why I never liked the 3D Marios before. With this game they seem to have finally justified the complex controls/mechanics with equally complex level design.

Is the GC/Wii GPU programmable to the extent the N64 was? I think the case there was that Nintendo was giving really sub-par microcode to 3rd parties, and didn't document the GPU, so only Nintendo and a few really dedicated 3rd parties (e.g. Rare) got what was available out of the system.

The N64 did have some restrictions to itself to limit what could be done though some devs were given access to the microcode and a few others actually wrote their own. I don't exactly know how that part works but BOSS studios was one of them and anyone that played World Driver Championship knew they could do things others were not with N64. In reference to the Wii, this more or less refers to the tools that Nintendo has published vs the range of middleware tools out there. Currently Nintendo has the best tools but once a few companies get some good time with the machine, they'll release some middleware that will visually stomp what we see today. Eiji Aonuma recently said Twilight princess was the tip of the iceberg because it was simply a GC game with basically no Wii code at all, controller aside, and that the next Zelda title will show a vast improvement all around possibly including elements like full orchestral score and not just graphical updates.

The thought of this game makes me all fuzzy inside. Really, it looks like it'll be the sheer fun that isn't often captured nowadays. This is probably my most anticipated game right now. Galaxy is definately going to blow sunshine out of the water.

Noooooo!!! Now they just started throwing random things to the medium: giant apples and eggs, glass cylinders etc. I mean, even the question mark boxes and cloud jumping in SMB were more innovative than this. The first videos, especially the Bloop route were sweet though. Hope they come up with some other cool things.