By including wi-fi in the DS and the Wii Nintendo has shown (on the hardware side) that they are incredibly forward thinking. But their Friend Code system actively discourages use of their network.
Why do you think Nintendo went this way? Have they ever publicly stated the reason? I know the commonly given reason in the community is that they are protecting children from predators but is this really the reason?
I'll refrain from giving my theories until I hear from all y'all.
Maybe it's cheaper to implement. I can't really think of any other reason.
unless as aspro and raven said, they deliberately want to make things counter-intuitive and cumbersome to avoid too many people using the online services. but that would go against their giving out presents to people who help others connect etc (or maybe they just want them to connect to the shop
I think Nintendo are quirky crazy assholes who do whatever they think is best and in crazy land this makes some sort of sense to them.
Its really strange because when it was first announced system codes didn't sound so bad. One code per machine yeah? Early games like Elebits just pulled the system code off your machine for you, other games do this too like Boom Blox and Metroid Prime 3. But then game specific codes were born. And they are, reta****.
If you are friends enough with someone to exchange system codes with each other then you should have no problems playing with anyone with access to their living room. And if they're not savoury, you delete them. Job done.
That's probably the closest thing to the truth.
I can see an engineering group in Japan saying "We don't have the support staff to keep up with a registration system, screening names, checking for existing names etc... We'll make it easy for the customers (and ourselves) and give every machine a unique code." When you add on top of this that NOA has no technical division whatsoever, so Japan would have to handle it all (including the approval of western names like Penis McBalls) then it would seem an insumountable task to take on your first time through the online process.
I hope it has given them enough breathing space to evolve the next time around.
The one system code is fine, but the game specific codes is BS.
What is weird is that Mario kart installs this channel to your wii and you can see who is playing online even without having the disc in the machine.
And it allows you to invite people just by clicking an icon, you add people from your system code list.
They can do this and yet why not just do an online channel so you can see who is online regardless of game?
I once read that the wii isn't powerful enough to have an OS running over the top whilst a game is being played that would allow you to IM someone or check online status.
It's weird because it can be so easy to add someone, for instance in animal crossing if I'm in a friends town and some of their friends come over who I dont know you can instantly hook up by clicking one icon. No code exchange BS.