Nintendo Wi-fi Connection

One of the things that really sucks about nintendo's online service is Friend Codes. I know this is all part of Nintendo's business strategy but it's been a major issue with nintendo products since the DS and I never get tired of talking about it.

"Different services do things differently. Nintendo's three goals for Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection are to make the service free, easy, and safe. These goals are there not just for young players, but also older ones and new players. Nintendo is bringing a lot of new people into the world of videogames, and we want to reduce barriers while making the online experience as enjoyable as possible." - Nintendo


The real reason why Nintendo had put this system into place was probably to get rid of the stereotype of gamers stuck in their room for days at a time without any real human contact. Well, that and to keep kids safe while symuoltaniously not having to educate parents about the parental settings. And maybe, to avoid the atrocities found on XBL voice chat.


I first noticed their suckage when playing Mario Kart DS. Because the few people online who didn't snake (an exploit used to win races) you never got to play against again. That is unless you knew their friend code.

Rather than being able to conveniently click a button in the game you have to find the person on a friend code site and manually put in the code and wait for the person to add you the same way (after telling them to add you).

Nintendo Social Play

“There are plenty of ways to make the service safe and easy to use without crippling it like Nintendo has...“ - says kylenalepa via kotaku.

Well there is; it's called Parental Controls but again nintendo obviously realizes that either most parents are too computer stupid to set them up or they just would rather not have to deal with it (in most cases both.)


So the only thing I'd see them doing, if they wanted to please us core gamers that is, is to created a separate service for those that aren't kids and would like to have a online service comparable to XBL. This would be a separate service that'd cooperate with friend codes and but would only affect the subscribers.

It give 'em all the standard social networking features:
Voice chat
Game lobby
Add to friend list button (only works on Nintendo Social Play users)
A search for NSP users.

If anyone doubts that this could possibly happen (my self included) I think their memory solution might prove that they care enough about us "avid players" to also possibly eliminate our problems with their online service.

"Statistically speaking, it is true that there are a small number of customers who feel that the flash memory is too small, while many others find that they have plenty of memory. However, because this small number of people are none other than the most avid players, we know we have to review the best possible solution to eliminate their inconvenience." - Iwata president of nintendo japan.