"Nintendo Plans to Build Online Community"

[Sad Panda323]

http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3171382

People still can't seem to get enough of the Wii, at least judging from its monthly dominance of the sales charts, but one place it hasn't dominated is online gaming. Its reliance on players exchanging twelve digit "friend codes" to connect with each other flies in the face of the Wii's approach of being so easy to use anyone can pick it up and play right away. They've left the door open for someone else to seize the mainstream audience for creating an online community accessed through your home gaming console, and with the none-too-subtle avatars in the new Xbox Live experience launching this week Microsoft seems eager to take advantage of the opportunity.

With all those Wii owners out there, Nintendo must be planning something, and we've got our first hint at that in the latest Game On column over at Forbes.com. In it, Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime says this about their plans for online:

Nintendo has always had a vision on community. The issue is that we define community differently than our competitors...Our consumers do want a sense of community, and we're going to deliver that -- but in a way that's unique to Nintendo.

Not a lot to go on, but it does at least get it out there that Nintendo plans to jump into the online space with something. Since Fils-Aime describes it as being unique to Nintendo I suppose that rules out a combination of Miis -- since they've now been mimicked by the Xbox avatars -- and some sort of room-like space -- since that's Sony's Home. That leaves it pretty open as to what they have in mind. With Wii Speak turning out to be a glorified speakerphone, it remains to be seen how well Nintendo even gets the online connected world. For all we know a "way that's unique to Nintendo" could be nothing more than announcing an automated friend code exchange system alongside an online multiplayer version of F-Zero for the Wii.



This may sound good, but I'm not getting my hopes up. What do you guys think?

 

[ndayday]

Sounds good, I hope that whatever the unique thing turns out to be, it will be something good. If not, I won't be that surprised, but it sounds pretty promising to me.

I wonder what it could be...it will probably have to do with WiiSpeak, and if it's something major we'll possibly have to pay now instead of free WiFi connection.

Keeping my fingers crossed on this one.

 

[BloodyPuppy]

My hopes are not high, but we'll see.

 

[Darkslash]

Finally Nintendo pulls their head from between their legs when it comes to online. Hopefully the Wii and the next home console will get some serious business online now.

 

[Puddin]

Well if they really want to improve it there are a few key things they need to jump on...

1. Gamertags/PSN ID's. An ID or name of any kind would be a huge advance for Nintendo online community, a lot better then exchanging friend codes.

2.Recently Met Player List. Sony has one, and I believe Microsoft may as well. It would be a minor thing but still an improvement.

3. Parental Controls and Set-able Censors. It's fairly obvious that Nintendo is trying to keep their online and console Kid-Friendly by not allowing you to use Taunts in With Anyone Brawl and having nary an M rated game, so to solve this allow parents an easy system of setting up censors on certain words and a password to keep their children from unblocking them. Honestly if a parent cares so much about their kid's brain being infected with the naughty words they learn at public school then they would take the time to censor it.

4. I hate the Wii Menu. But if they MUST keep it then their only option is making a channel to do all these things, a friendship request box a, a recently met player section, the censors, the whole sham bam doodle....whatever that means.

Yeah I've got my hopes up, though I haven't touched my Wii since LittleBigPlanet came out, so now I've got even higher expectations for Nintendo.

 

[Cashed]

Good luck Nintendo, you're going to need it.

 

[Mew2King]

online better not replace in-person tourneys

 

[BloodyPuppy]

Man, online will never be as fun as playing with people in person. This goes for any game.

 

[Oracle]

online better not replace in-person tourneys

Don't worry, since brawl's a fighting game (a pathetic one at that) the lag will always be there, so there will never be any replacement. Besides, would something like the FC3 crew battles have been the same?

 

[XACE-K]

Sounds good but I do have a feeling it won't go well.

1. Gamertags/PSN ID's. An ID or name of any kind would be a huge advance for Nintendo online community, a lot better then exchanging friend codes.

2.Recently Met Player List. Sony has one, and I believe Microsoft may as well. It would be a minor thing but still an improvement.

3. Parental Controls and Set-able Censors. It's fairly obvious that Nintendo is trying to keep their online and console Kid-Friendly by not allowing you to use Taunts in With Anyone Brawl and having nary an M rated game, so to solve this allow parents an easy system of setting up censors on certain words and a password to keep their children from unblocking them. Honestly if a parent cares so much about their kid's brain being infected with the naughty words they learn at public school then they would take the time to censor it.

4. I hate the Wii Menu. But if they MUST keep it then their only option is making a channel to do all these things, a friendship request box a, a recently met player section, the censors, the whole sham bam doodle....whatever that means.

This is what Nintendo should do with this IMO.

online better not replace in-person tourneys

There would still be lag since this is Nintendo. Besides, in-person tournies are too much fun to be replaced by online.

 

[Dash_Fox]

online better not replace in-person tourneys

There will be both probably if the lag gets better. With nearly all video games the major tournaments are in person. Computer gaming plays on LAN and the consoles will be in person. It won't change much except there will be a chance for others to have a similar experience online if they have a busy schedule with their life and can't travel anytime soon.

 

[OmegaXXII]

online better not replace in-person tourneys

NEVER!!!

There would still be lag since this is Nintendo.

Well, I don't necessarily think it so, not as long as Nintendo really gets into online.

Besides, in-person tournies are too much fun to be replaced by online.

and yes, in-person tournies are much better than online tournies in seeing that you can actually interact with others that love the same as you.

 

[SkylerOcon]

1. Gamertags/PSN ID's. An ID or name of any kind would be a huge advance for Nintendo online community, a lot better then exchanging friend codes.

2.Recently Met Player List. Sony has one, and I believe Microsoft may as well. It would be a minor thing but still an improvement.

3. Parental Controls and Set-able Censors. It's fairly obvious that Nintendo is trying to keep their online and console Kid-Friendly by not allowing you to use Taunts in With Anyone Brawl and having nary an M rated game, so to solve this allow parents an easy system of setting up censors on certain words and a password to keep their children from unblocking them. Honestly if a parent cares so much about their kid's brain being infected with the naughty words they learn at public school then they would take the time to censor it.

4. I hate the Wii Menu. But if they MUST keep it then their only option is making a channel to do all these things, a friendship request box a, a recently met player section, the censors, the whole sham bam doodle....whatever that means.

I agree with pretty much all of this. Though I'd say that they'd d o something to keep the more mature audiences away from the younger kids. As in, only letting kids of say, 10 years play with kids in that age.

 

[BentoBox]

I don't see how hinting at a better sense of community got you guys to think that they would improve the lag issues with brawl. As of now, there is no way to even interact with players that arent on your FC. And even if they are, there is currently no infrastructure ingame to even allow you to talk live. ._." A lot of work needs to be done. But again, this is Nintendo. Any hype sourcing from this is bound to backfire.

 

[Firus]

I don't see how hinting at a better sense of community got you guys to think that they would improve the lag issues with brawl. As of now, there is no way to even interact with players that arent on your FC. And even if they are, there is currently no infrastructure ingame to even allow you to talk live. ._." A lot of work needs to be done. But again, this is Nintendo. Any hype sourcing from this is bound to backfire.

I could not have said it better myself.

Making a sense of community DOES NOT mean they would fix the online at all. And the way Reggie hinted at it, saying Nintendo has a unique way of doing it...they already have a "unique" way of doing it. It doesn't necessarily mean they're going to make it GOOD unique.

But maybe I'm just a complete pessimist when it comes to Nintendo these days.

 

[Darkslash]

If its GOOD unique then YES. Hopefully they don't make this a digital pile of solid fuel. If other companies are copying Nintendo, why can't Nintendo do the same?

 

[GreenKirby]

Because it's not Mario and Zelda. And you know how the Nintendo hardcore are critical of stuff that isn't Mario or Zelda. lol

 

[BloodyPuppy]

Because it's not Mario and Zelda. And you know how the Nintendo hardcore are critical of stuff that isn't Mario or Zelda. lol

Pshh, all I care about is Nintendo cranking out some decent games again, Mario or otherwise.

 

[Minato]

I think Nintendo will do better online for their next system, not the Wii.

But that's just my opinion.

 

[Mic_128]

All Ninty ever needed to do was need just Wii numbers for online games. Forget individual codes for every **** game.

 

[Lore]

Agreed Mic.

I lost most of my hope for nintendo when they considered Animal Crossing a hardcore game.

Hard to see this being any more than friend code mania, MMO form! Put in a fc in order to talk to ANYBODY! If you don't, walk around the world, and curse yourself for them putting so many d*** 25 man raids in.

 

[Darkslash]

I lost most of my hope for nintendo when they considered Animal Crossing a hardcore game.

Seeing how many ****ing hours people put into that game, its kinda hard to blame them for calling it that.

Plus to be honest i think Casuals are gonna have a hard time finding friend codes. They really don't go online to boards who have a **** list of FC for each game. IF nintendo is smart they will hopefully drop the friend codes. or as i like to call them ****ing annoying Codes.

 

[Waka_Waka_do_do_yea]

but in a way that's unique to Nintendo.

It saddens me that I can't find that positive. Truly, it hurts me more then anything else.

 

[K64]

Inprove online community...and yet make it kiddy-friendly.....I need a concrete statement otherwise it's MEH.

 

[Puddin]

All Ninty ever needed to do was need just Wii numbers for online games. Forget individual codes for every **** game.

Numbers in general are ridiculous they need to let us choose an I.D of some sort to use for every game, and a function that allows us to search for said I.D. to add people to a friend list of some sort.

 

[Firus]

Seeing how many ****ing hours people put into that game, its kinda hard to blame them for calling it that.

Hours of playtime =/= the hardcore/casualness of a game. I'm sure there are people who put hours and hours into Wii Fit and Wii Sports, but I don't see those being hardcore at all.
I play the games, and love them, but they're a mix of casual and hardcore at best.

 

[BloodyPuppy]

Hours of playtime =/= the hardcore/casualness of a game. I'm sure there are people who put hours and hours into Wii Fit and Wii Sports, but I don't see those being hardcore at all.
I play the games, and love them, but they're a mix of casual and hardcore at best.

I think it's less because the game itself is hardcore and more because it appeals to gamers and not just non-gamers.