October 7th 2002

Dear Diary...


Well, it's finally finished. I spent almost a week working feverishly on this darn web site, and now I can finally breathe a little easier. It's not over though. I've still got 125 Pokémon e-Cards coming by snail mail within the next few weeks, and I'll have to do catalog entries for each one of them. It will take days just to scan them all, but it'll be worth it. At least, I'll be able to try all those Pokémon mini-games with my e-Reader.

I wanted to do a nice animated sidebar using Flash, but I didn't have enough time to do it, mainly because I've never used Flash before. A collegue of mine at the office gave me a quick demonstration of his Flash development software, and he made an animated button for me in about 30 minutes, but his demonstration only proved to me that it would take me weeks to learn to program my sidebar display using Flash, and I needed to get this site up and running as soon as possible. So I went with good ol' HTML. Perhaps I'll get around to doing the Flash version later. Or perhaps someone else could do it for me...

So, anyway, do you like my site? I think it looks okay. As you can see from the various icons and pictures, I'm not very good with colors. I never learned how to do use paint programs like Paint Shop Pro to do those gorgeous pictures you can find on many other web sites. But at least the content is there. That's the important thing, for me at least. And hey, you'll notice there are no publicity banners! That's good, isn't it? :-)

So what's with my sudden interest with Nintendo's e-Reader, you ask? It's not exactly sudden. I've had my eye on this cool device ever since Nintendo presented it at E3 2002. When it was finally released on September 16th 2002, I wasn't sure if I was going to buy one, but after a couple of weeks, I gave into temptation and I bought it, along with all the NES-e packs.

Strangely enough, what I like the most about the e-Reader is the stuff we haven't even seen yet. The e-Card medium can be used in so many cool ways, it offers so many possibilities... I can only hope Nintendo will allow this device to achieve its full potential as a gaming platform.

I disagree with those who say the e-Reader should have been a distinct Link Cable peripheral instead of a cartridge-type device. As it is, it's very light and portable, and I like it that way. But why did they have to make it black? Couldn't they make variations of it with colors that match the GBA casing colors? Oh well... At least it doesn't require its own set of batteries. That's a big plus in my book.

Some people are actually surprised to learn that the US model of the e-Reader is actually more advanced than the japanese model. I think the north-american gaming market is only a testing ground. If it sells well and generates enough interest here, Nintendo will probably reintroduce the US model in Japan. After all, I'm sure japanese gamers would want to connect their e-Readers with their Game Cubes, and also to play NES games on their GBAs. Mark my words: The US model of the e-Reader will not stay a US-only device for very long...

I've got quite a few ideas for possible e-Reader applications, and I'll be discussing these ideas, in this section of my web site, over the next few weeks. I will also discuss other issues related to the e-Reader.

Bye for now! ;-)