Nintendo: Fix your online gaming service!
I love playing games online. I love playing Nintendo games. However, playing Nintendo games online is like slicing your forehead open and smashing it with a salt-lathered spatula.
Besides the fact that it’s Wi-Fi, there is absolutely nothing to like about Nintendo’s Wi-Fi Connection service. Nada. Zlitch. Black hole. There is no bright side of things when dealing with such a barebones, disabled service. It’s like trying to find positive aspects of a baseball player with no limbs.
The Big N utilizes a system that every Nintendo fan is painfully aware of: friend codes. Rather than being able to virtually represent yourself with a username, you are given a generic Mii and a sterile twelve digit code. When I was first given my friend code, I wondered if a clone trooper helmet was going to arrive in the mail a few days later. To boot, all of your gaming peers are veiled in anonymity. Being anonymous is fantastic for posting nude pictures of yourself on 4Chan, but when it comes to online gaming, you’d like your fellow gamers to know at least a tad about yourself.
Nintendo has always preached that they offer a “family friendly” and “safe” medium of online play that their competitors don’t offer. Nintendo is more than just conscious of the millions of children that flock to their parents’ wallets; they have designed their online system around this demographic. Nintendo believes that by appealing to children and their parents, that they’ll make up for any losses garnered by alienating the hardcore crowd.
What does Xbox LIVE look like? Does it look like a bitch? No. Xbox LIVE is anything but a bitch. Microsoft’s digital gaming paradise offers both worlds of online play; family friendly settings for the kiddies, as well as true, uncensored gaming interactivity for adults. Sure, is there a risk that your little Christopher might get flashed on UNO if he breaks the parental settings? Possibly. But it’s better than telling Mark, the 25 year-old bartender down the street he can’t play Modern Warfare 2 with his friends because his neighbor, Billy (a seven year-old little dipshit), might be called a faggot.
For a company that prides itself on its ability to appeal to people of all different shapes and sizes, they sure as hell have a knack for marginalizing the crowd that is most loyal to him. Nintendo can easily copy Microsoft or Sony and create an online world that appeals just a little bit to the hardcore crowd. Hell, just a quarter of the capabilities of the PlayStation Network would be a vast improvement. So here are some steps for Ninty to get their online shit together, because it’s 2010. Still having no flying cars is bearable, but still having a half assed Nintendo online service is utter bullshit.
Step 1: End Friend Codes
As much as I relish feeling like a robot on an assembly line, Nintendo needs to terminate the Friend Code system immediately. Actually, terminate sounds like too much of a euphemism. Friend Codes should receive the Mussolini treatment; murdered on a grand stage in front of all Nintendo gamers to enjoy. This is the most predictable step for fixing Nintendo’s Wi-Fi Connection, but it is by far the most necessary. Gamers need the ability to showcase their identities to other gamers, and a simple username system would be a start to that.
Step 2: Voice Chat that actually fucking works
While most people are still shocked to find out that the Wii hardly any voice chat capabilities, the DS’ microphone was designed to have some means for chatting. However, the hardware is too damn cheap to actually muster anything comprehendible. I recently played some Pokemon with fellow DAMNLAG Staffer, Josh “Genki” Michaelson, over Wi-Fi. When he spoke through the microphone for the first time, he appeared to say “Come on, I want some gonorrhea with my cheese!” While I was originally surprised by Genki’s yearning for such an odd combination as STDs and dairy, it turned out that he actually said “Come on, I want to switch out my Stratavaria please,” in response to me not letting him use a higher level Pokemon. It’s misunderstandings like this that have become a major problem using the DS Microphone.
While the DS’ shitty microphone can be given a pass for being a handheld bonus, the near complete lack of voice chat on the Wii is ridiculous. Wii Speak is only compatible with a paltry eight games. I want to be able to communicate with fellow gamers online. If I can’t do that, my enemies are nothing but smarter (sometimes) robots.
Step 3: Profiles
Usernames, Voice Chat, and Profiles go hand in hand with one another. It’s like a strand of Christmas Tree lights; if one of those three bulbs burn out, the entire system is pointless, and I’m going to get extremely pissed off. It won’t matter how much I enjoy talking with a guy whose username is “ArcadeFireRulesJustinBieberCanGoSuckAKangaroo’sCock.” If there’s no Profile of his that I can visit, then I can’t follow the games he plays, I can’t invite him to the games I play, and I can’t really communicate with him. Nintendo needs to implement a true, online profile and online tracking system to their gaming software. Without that, any sort of interactivity amongst gamers is lost.
The sad part is, the first three steps were considered basic for consoles in 2004. Usernames, voice chat, and profiles are all a part of the FREE Silver version of Xbox LIVE, and are all staples of the PlayStation Network. To not have these basic features on an internet gaming service today is just stupid, and this lacking showcases Nintendo’s ever present ignorance.
Step 4: Release updates for old games to match the new system
Playing Super Smash Bros. Brawl online should have been a fighting revolution. Instead it was a laggy, frustrating mess that had me smashing the buttons off my Wiimote with my skull. Online, Brawl was as terrible as any other Nintendo game played over Wi-Fi. There was no way to track stats, no leaderboard system, and no tournament creator (a crux for the Smash Bros. community.) Without any of those features, the game was useless online. If Nintendo successfully implements Steps 1-3, a Brawl update would have to become necessary. All of the desired Brawl features I just listed would be an incredible start. However, true advancements, like the ability to download and receive updates, as well as fully fleshed downloadable content would be be true advancements.
Brawl doesn’t have to be alone though. Metroid Prime 3: Corruption would be a great fit for an online expansion pack, and would have Nintendo gamers playing the one of the Wii’s staples more than they did when it originally was released. But the emphasis here is all on “would.” When it comes to such things as Expansion Packs, DLC, and updates for Nintendo games, it’s almost impossible to be more hypothetical.
Step 5: Release a Megaton game with the new service’s launch
No new software or electronic product can exist without its killer app. Xbox LIVE had Halo, Sony had Socom, and more recently, 3D had Avatar. When looking at Nintendo’s franchises, only one game can be a guaranteed online phenomenon for it’s updated Wi-Fi service:
A Pokemon MMORPG.
It doesn’t matter what your age, what your inclinations, or what system you own: everyone would want to play the Pokemon MMORPG. Pokemania has died out considerably in America (thankfully), but if a game on this scale was ever released, World of Warcraft would no longer be the West’s most famous RPG. This would be huge on a scale we haven’t seen before; something that could become a worldwide phenomenon. The fact it hasn’t been made already feels like Nintendo is burning stockpiles of cash. There is no doubt a Pokemon MMORPG would be the game that would take Nintendo’s online service to a level that’s at least as entertaining as Xbox LIVE or the PSN.
However, there is a glaring problem with all of these steps: they just make too much god damn sense. If Nintendo really wanted a online service designed for both families and hardcore gamers, they could have done it already. But they don’t need to. Nintendo is in one of their “Papercut” periods, where accounting is one of their largest expenses as they add up the heaps of money that enters their executives’ bank accounts. It’s gonna take a decline in Wii sales (which isn’t happening,) or a major 3DS bomb (which hopefully isn’t happening) to get Nintendo to reconsider their online strategy. For a company that stresses so much on innovation, you’d imagine Nintendo would bring some to online gaming.
***After I posted my first edit of this article, I forgot to write about Wii Speak in my voice chat step (received a few e-mails reminding me of it.) Honestly, because the hardware was so damn incompatible with the Wii’s lineup it slipped my mind. Anyway, the article has been updated, and I apologize not originally mentioning it. Thanks for all the feedback!***
***For more Nintendo rants, musings, and listings, check back every Monday for an edition of The Nintendo Dude.***
About the Author
Steve Bogda
Steve is the primary owner of The DamnLag. He currently attends New York University, where he studies Film, History and Politics. When he is not writing about Nintendo, Steve runs the day to day operations of The DamnLag, as its Editor-in-Chief.
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