Mario Kart being played online? Breakthrough in the making?

["The Game"Evolution]

You read it right GC owners.Perhaps MK:DD may have a future online after all.Heres the story:

Warp Pipe drives Mario Kart online

Indie developers bring Web-based multiplayer gaming to another GameCube title.

The Warp Pipe project reached another milestone this week when it successfully enabled played Mario Kart: Double Dash!! online. As previously covered on GameSpot, the group of independent developers has been tinkering tirelessly the past few months to devise a method to bring Web-based multiplayer gaming to the GameCube.

Warp Pipe's method--using PCs to create a Wide Area Network which tricks the consoles into thinking they're playing on a LAN--has only worked previously with Kirby Air Ride. Using the latest build of the Warp Pipe program, which has reached the beta phase, Warp Pipe founder Chad Paulson--whose progress has been reported extensively on fan site, GameCube Advanced--played Mario Kart with a friend at a full frame rate over a 128kbps DSL connection. The Alpha version of Warp Pipe required two university connections to play and only had frame rates of 55 to 60 fps. "This is a large step forward," said Paulson, who also announced a router was no longer required as part of Warp Pipe's PC component.

By Tor Thorsen, GameSpot [POSTED: 11/25/03 11:11 AM

[Gadfly2317]

<div class=\"smallfont\">You read it right GC owners.Perhaps MK:DD may have a future online after all.Heres the story:

http://www.gamespot.com/gamecube/driving/mariokartdoubledash/news
6084611.html</div>

Actually, now that I think about it, Link never did work, he only steals coins out of jars in peoples houses. But anyway, the Link you posted doesn't work either. I imagine its about the Warp Pipe.

Why read the news, go straight to www.warppipe.com and find out the up to date progress in developing an online plan for Mario Kart and Kirby's Air Ride. It's basically taking your system link capability and tricking it into running online, if I understand correctly.

I still prefer to have friends come over and play this one. Trust me, the tenth time you've gotten shot with a heat seaking turtle shell, you're gonna want to reach and punch the perp.

[no.1gamer]

I think if the Warp Pipe server becomes a big hit Nintendo will finally be encouraged to build a "real" online community. And I wouldn't be surprised if it does make a big splash in the video gaming ocean. Mainly because many Nintendo fans are hardcore gamers. This will be the only place to do any online Nintendo gaming. And while other games may be more "online oriented" if you want to play the unique Nintendo games online the Warp Pipe is the place to be! Although I'm willing to bet Nintendo won't admit to it, they're probably watching this with their fingers crossed! (If I were in charge of Nintendo, I would secretly throw a little funding over in Warp Pipe's direction.)

I'm not an expert on online gaming. Actually the only online games I've ever got into are a handful of RTS games for the PC. But I would think that Nintendo is in a very good spot to produce what could possibly be the best online gaming community I've ever had the pleasure of associating with. Nintendo makes its own console and therefore could create a unique online community specifically for it. Now add to this the fact that Nintendo is also responsible for making its own games! Therefore they could provide you with an exclusive Nintendo style of online gaming! Of course, I would hope that games from EA and Capcom also be included on this server…