Ask Joystiq Nintendo: Smurftastic Edition

Welcome to another Smurfy week of Smurf Joystiq Nintendo! This week, a reader smurfed a question about a classic Smurf game, and I think I smurfed it appropriately, though the answer may not be as smurfy as Smurf fans may have smurfed.

Do you want to smurf us a question about the Wii, DS, or anysmurf else related to Nintendo? Smurf us an email at asknintendo AT joystiq DOT com!

Shawn Towne asks:

Any predictions of the Smurfs coming to the Wii Virtual Console?

Thanks!

Shawn: I would love to see the Colecovision Smurf Rescue game on the Virtual Console! That was my jam back in toddler times. I'd even take the Atari 2600 version. But Nintendo has yet to add Colecovision (or 2600) support. And as for that and any other Smurfs games, it's a matter of re-securing the Smurfs license, which probably won't happen for just Virtual Console games. And even if Infogrames (or Atari, as it is known now), the last license holder, still has the right to release Smurfs material, that company has yet to do anything at all on Virtual Console.

In summary, my prediction is as follows:

:(

Jason Crockett asks:

Will I be able to buy what are currently labeled as Wii points and use them on my DSi when it launches? Or will I have to wait for the cards listed for both types? I'm assuming the former but I want to be sure.

Okay, speculation time here: since the Wii just updated its Shop Channel yesterday, and since current Wii Points cards work just fine, I see no reason that the codes would be any different for new Nintendo Points cards than for Wii Points cards. After all, the codes would have to continue to work on the Wii just like they did before. The cards will just look different.

André Leroux asks:

I recently bought, through ebay, the game ''guitar hero on tour'' for DS lite. I think the game got hacked to be working without a hand grip (it work with the arrows buttons or the XYAB buttons and I saw some posting on the web about this hack). Is there a way I can unhacked the game to make it work with my hand grip?

This situation could have been resolved by cancelling the purchase through ebay, but by the time I received the game, the seller was no more available on ebay... damn!!!

Thanks for any information!

"Congratulations!" By which I mean "sorry ... " You bought a pirate Guitar Hero cart from eBay. The ROM was hacked and then dumped onto the cartridge. It can't be changed.

Eric Bond asks:

I have Rock Band (1), Rock Band Track Pack Vol. 1, and Rock Band 2.
Is there any news on whether or not Wii owners will be able to either transfer or download songs from RB and/or the RBTP's for free if they were purchased before RB2? I don't know if I'm being very clear, so, for example, there are such songs as "Joker and the Thief", "Move Along", "The Kill", "Calling Dr. Love", "Buddy Holly", etc. on Track Pack Vol. 1, all of which I believe are for download on RB2 already. If I were to go download any of those now, I would have to pay 200 Wii Points, which would be paying for it again. Is there any news from EA about allowing people to download such songs for free, since they have already been paid for afterall?

Don't hold your breath. The Transfer License actually copies the songs from the Rock Band disc to the hard drive -- something that doesn't happen with any other Wii games (substituting, of course, "SD card" or "system memory" for "hard drive." There's not likely to be a patch to that effect any time soon. Plus, Harmonix hasn't said a thing about it.

Every week, we'll answer reader questions about the Wii, the DS, or any other Nintendo-related topic in Ask Joystiq Nintendo. If you have a question, e-mail it to asknintendo AT joystiq DOT com! You need your questions answered, and we need content for this column. It's a symbiotic relationship!