It's not that I find things like "waiting on line in a sketchy part of town at midnight" fun or anything, but I have a nasty habit of people-watching. So when I realized that the movie I was seeing let out just before midnight, and my way home could - in theory - take me past an EB, I decided to see just how much excitement the 360 would cause at one of those fine (*cough*) establishments. I also wanted to see if I could buy a system. I was with a friend who happened to be there too (because it's his job to cover these lunatics who'd stand in the upper fringes of the Tenderloin late at night for a $400 white box, let alone walk away with it), so I knew at the very least I wouldn't be bored. Or worse, stuck talking to a complete stranger about the finer points of how, precisely, he's going to mod the system come hell, high water, or Gates himself.
There's an old joke, I forget where I heard it; for now, credit goes to A. Nony Mous: "Gamers got up in anger, then quickly sat back down, winded." to say that things were pretty sedate in the store would be an understatement. I guess being midnight on a work day had something to do with it, but I was expecting a bit more, I don't know...hype? A big ol' party in the store; green pinatas in the shapes of PS3s and Revolutions hung from the cheap, tiled ceilings; a staff dressed completely in green; face-painted gamers with Conker tattoos on their backs, the relative size of which is only matched by the size of the average American flag on an SUV, just aching to play Kameo. But there was none of that.
The line moved at a steady, if sometimes glacial pace as people deliberated over whether they really wanted Perfect Dark; I wasn't paying too much attention, but I'm pretty sure some guy ahead of me actually bought Need for Speed over Project Gotham Racing. Not that I was expecting to be in the wake of people who knew any better. But, at last, I reached the counter.
"I'd like a blue DS, please."
"I'm...sorry?"
"A blue DS."
"I don't think...see, we're not really 'open,' we can only sell XBox stuff."
"Oh?"
"Yeah."
It took a bit of doing - and by "doing" I mean "Chris and I asking the assistant manager what was up with the register jockey - but eventually (who I think were) the manager and assistant manager agreed to sell me a DS. As the former was walking to the back, I shouted "And a copy of Mario Kart, too!" I believe his response was along the lines of "Now you're pushing it...", but to be fair, he kinda laughed when he said it; no malice at all, very nice guy. Probably the first EB employee I've ever encountered that wasn't the ripest asshole this side of goatse.
So my point - and I do have one - is that the Netgear WGR614v5 seems to work just swimmingly with the DS and WFC. I even connected and disconnected from NWFC a few times just to see if it was a fluke. I don't know what's up with Nintendo; I suspect either a bad test unit, older firmware, a bad installation of firmware, some jackass setting that they forgot to check, or a mix of all four. (Watch, I'll go home tonight and it won't work anymore.) So if you have this router and are worried, at least check before laying out the cash for the dongle. It's $30 that can go towards, well...whatever's worth playing on the DS outside of Mario Kart.
(*I never said which system, now did I?)
(**Mario Kart is one of three games I'll be playing on my deathbed. The announcement of its support for online play pretty much secured a DS in my future. It's probably the only game I'll ever get for the system, which is fine by me.)
(***Yes, I know about the upcoming bundle, but a red DS? No thanks.)
There's an old joke, I forget where I heard it; for now, credit goes to A. Nony Mous: "Gamers got up in anger, then quickly sat back down, winded." to say that things were pretty sedate in the store would be an understatement. I guess being midnight on a work day had something to do with it, but I was expecting a bit more, I don't know...hype? A big ol' party in the store; green pinatas in the shapes of PS3s and Revolutions hung from the cheap, tiled ceilings; a staff dressed completely in green; face-painted gamers with Conker tattoos on their backs, the relative size of which is only matched by the size of the average American flag on an SUV, just aching to play Kameo. But there was none of that.
The line moved at a steady, if sometimes glacial pace as people deliberated over whether they really wanted Perfect Dark; I wasn't paying too much attention, but I'm pretty sure some guy ahead of me actually bought Need for Speed over Project Gotham Racing. Not that I was expecting to be in the wake of people who knew any better. But, at last, I reached the counter.
"I'd like a blue DS, please."
"I'm...sorry?"
"A blue DS."
"I don't think...see, we're not really 'open,' we can only sell XBox stuff."
"Oh?"
"Yeah."
It took a bit of doing - and by "doing" I mean "Chris and I asking the assistant manager what was up with the register jockey - but eventually (who I think were) the manager and assistant manager agreed to sell me a DS. As the former was walking to the back, I shouted "And a copy of Mario Kart, too!" I believe his response was along the lines of "Now you're pushing it...", but to be fair, he kinda laughed when he said it; no malice at all, very nice guy. Probably the first EB employee I've ever encountered that wasn't the ripest asshole this side of goatse.
So my point - and I do have one - is that the Netgear WGR614v5 seems to work just swimmingly with the DS and WFC. I even connected and disconnected from NWFC a few times just to see if it was a fluke. I don't know what's up with Nintendo; I suspect either a bad test unit, older firmware, a bad installation of firmware, some jackass setting that they forgot to check, or a mix of all four. (Watch, I'll go home tonight and it won't work anymore.) So if you have this router and are worried, at least check before laying out the cash for the dongle. It's $30 that can go towards, well...whatever's worth playing on the DS outside of Mario Kart.
(*I never said which system, now did I?)
(**Mario Kart is one of three games I'll be playing on my deathbed. The announcement of its support for online play pretty much secured a DS in my future. It's probably the only game I'll ever get for the system, which is fine by me.)
(***Yes, I know about the upcoming bundle, but a red DS? No thanks.)
