Nintendo under the impression gamers like friend codes

We’ve seen, in the feedback we’ve gotten, that people don’t mind the friend codes. They like them, because it keeps them playing with the friends that they do know, and it keeps their games “undisturbed,” if you will. (Go Nintendo)

Is there anything I can even say in response to this that will do this comment justice? I had been digging the internets trying to find an interview that had a response from nintendo to the complete mess that are friend codes. For those of you not in the know to play a online game with a friend on the wii. One needs to get said friend to add your friend number to their friend registry and you need to add their number to your registry. There are two big problems with this.

1.) Friend codes are GAME specific. What this means is everytime a gamer buys another game that supports online play she has to go through the process of adding each one of her friends again and getting them to add her back.
2.) Friend codes are a series of 12 digits. This makes it kind of hard to remember and tedious to enter in.

But the fact that Nintendo thinks that we are okay with friend codes. Nay that we LIKE them amazes me. One of the first loudest complaints on the nsider forums (Nintendo's now dead attempt at an community) was in fact the friend codes. What complicated matters further was that exchanging friend codes on the nsider forum was a ban-able offense.

Part I: My Wii is collecting dust.

I had and have high hopes for this console but some of Nintendo's old blunders are coming back to haunt them. As horrible and painful as it is for me to say ... XBox 360 may be the best overall console of this generation. It pains me because as someone who grew up with a Nintendo controller in my hand I want Nintendo to win. For the last couple generations Nintendo has been the ultimate under dog. A company that still makes good games but has been left by the way side. The Wii is no different.

This is not to say that the Wii will not be successful. One just has to look at the sales numbers to see that people are digging the Wii. But with this generation Nintendo heads off in a new direction. They are looking to get their wiimote into the hands of people who may never have thought of themselves as a gamer. This strategy seems to be working wonders for their bottom line. So the obvious question is with Nintendo finally back in the minds of consumers why am I sad?

I am not the consumer that Nintendo is targeting secondly the prelaunch promises to fix the mistakes of the past are falling to the wayside.

Friend Codes
This was one of the first complaints that started showing up all over nsider forums (RIP) post launch. Nintendo hiding behind protecting children, made it very difficult to add a friend to your wii's buddy list. How the Wii is setup you can not send a message to another wii owner unless you have registered them as your friend. The process to do this is painful at best. First you need to get ahold of your friend through some other means of communication and exchange wii numbers which are ~20 digit long unique identifier for your Wii. Now you both have to go into the wii address book and register your the wii numbers. Now what happens if you have a friends wii number but they do not have yours? You can not send them a message and the wii will not tell you that anything is wrong your message is just lost in the noise.

Protecting children is a good goal but not all wii owners are children. I do not need Nintendo to protect me from myself. It would have been nice to provide a way to disable this setting. Parental Controls are available for the Wii. Many Nintendo apologists said that this can be fixed in a patch. In a couple months it will be a year since launch and Nintendo has stuck to their guns. It is safe to assume at this point that this attitude of protecting owners from themselves is here for good.

Future commentary include:

• Part II: Online Play



• Part III: 3rd Party Support



• Part IV: Game Genres



• Part V: Flash Storage