This turned out to be a longer post than I intended, but hopefully you guys can still bear with me through it.
I guarantee voice chat would be nightmare for Nintendo to moderate. Necessary evil or not, team based shooters + actual target audience of young adults = recipe for disaster.
not like individual groups/parties aren't used to using Skype anyways
That's seemingly all under, or at least primarily under the voice chat with randoms umbrella. And while it would be nice to have the option of unlimited voice chat (with the mute option of course), I can understand why voice chat with randoms isn't a thing, and I don't fault Nintendo for it. Like Wintropy said, baby steps.
However I don't believe there is a valid reason in 2015 why a team-based shooter that emphasizes its online elements is lacking voice chat with friends. It's unfortunate it was not more present in games like Kart and Smash, but even with multiple people those games are still largely an individual or free-for-all experience, so it's understandable and not a huge deal. Yes, you can be on teams in Smash, but the game isn't built ground-up for team-based gameplay like Splatoon is. It's still you vs. them instead of us vs. them, as Splatoon is. Imagine if the only online option for Smash was Team Smash, you couldn't have a local teammate, and there was no voice chat. Better yet, imagine you're playing FE online with three others on your team, and each of you controls... for example, five units. So it would be 20 vs 20 but you couldn't control 15 of the units on your side, or communicate with those who can. It'd work, and Splatoon definitely will work, but none would provide an experience as full or as deep as they could. And that should be the priority when making a game. Delivering the best possible experience. It's not protecting children from adults, it's not sparing adults from children, even if that was Nintendo's duty, which it's not (it's the parents' duty), they've shirked that by allowing communication with friends outside of games. All this would do is allow for that communication to extend into a game where communication is important.
You wouldn't be communicating with just anybody, you'd be communicating with people you presumably have had some form of contact with before. And is that a nightmare to moderate? I guarantee it wouldn't be as much of a nightmare to moderate as Miiverse. You wouldn't even need particularly heavy-handed moderation: if anyone was problematic, you could mute or remove them from your friends. Or... just not Splatoon with them. Some moderation would be necessary, but that's like saying some testing is necessary. It might be a pain for the devs, but to create a better experience it's just part of the package. And it's pretty much a given at this point with every company but Nintendo. Granted, sometimes Nintendo marching to the beat of their own drum is a good thing, but in many instances, this being one of them, it's not. It's denying gamers a richer experience simply to satisfy Nintendo's own dogma. There might be a problem or annoyance here or there, but that doesn't compare to the effect of Nintendo limiting the game's potential to such a degree.
And yes, skype is definitely a solution, but it shouldn't have to be. In fact it's not a solution, because that implies the problem has been dealt with. It's a stop-gap measure, with the problem being gamers resorting to an external source like skype to get the most out of a game which is fully capable of providing what that external source adds, yet simply chooses not to. You're absolutely right Issy, people
are used to using skype for these things, and doesn't that show how inherently wanting some of these experiences can be? Not to say they're not still enjoyable, not to say they're not still great games, just that it's second nature to Nintendo gamers how lacking a feature other companies have included for nearly a decade is that they have to resort to a whole other program just to get on the same level?
It's not other companies being too cavalier with their communication features, it's Nintendo refusing to adapt. And it's killing them. Slowly, sure, but noticeably. By no means is it the only factor hindering Nintendo, really it's all just indicative of a larger problem which is better left for another rant, but when Nintendo touts the online aspects of a team-based shooter they've created and hope to make a big-name IP, the "Mario Kart of shooters", don't you think they should at least offer something that's been a part of the genre and gaming everywhere else for ages that enhances the experience many times over how much it may detract?
Don't get me wrong, I don't think voice chat with friends is a make or break addition to Splatoon, it should still be a super fun game even without it, just that it's pretty undeniable and pretty clear that it would make the game better and deeper, which should be Nintendo's priority. Yet they've made the very conscious decision to omit it for no good reason at all, which frankly verges on to anti-consumerism and continues to highlight Nintendo's lack of comprehending western gaming.
There's baby steps, and then there's shooting yourself in the foot.
