Gaming Nintendo and the Current Online Infrastructure

[Ryukouki]

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We've all seen cases of Nintendo's plight with its online situation. A good majority of players have been turned off by the almost archaic systems that Nintendo seems to use, and more players are turning towards Sony, Microsoft, or the PC to suit their online needs. Why is it that Nintendo is so far behind in their current infrastructure? I will most likely use this article to critique some of the major weaknesses in their system, and look into possible solutions that could be implemented in the future.

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One of the major weaknesses that I find with Nintendo's current online system is the Friend Code system. This system was introduced back during the release of the Nintendo DS back in 2004 and still exists even in 2014. It is about ten years old and one of the more irritating aspects in the 3DS online, as you would have to send a player your stream of digits and in order to play with them you have to add their code, something that is too time consuming.

Another major weakness in the online infrastructure is its lack of overall structure and organization. The eShop was released with the Nintendo DSi and it felt disorganized and clunky. Accessing different menus was painful, and things were strewn about randomly. The 3DS shop feels the same way, with items being categorized randomly and relying on a scrolling list of items. The 3DS also utilizes an SD card, with a completely different system for size management. While the memory card remains in MB/GB apps on the eShop are determined by the number of blocks. I would very much like to meet the person who invented the block system and bop him on the head a little bit.

On a side note, let's talk on the new Pokémon games and their lack of true structure. With the Global Trade Station, there is just no good filtering option that is default, as on most occasions the player has to manually input the same tedious defaults over and over again, otherwise the screen is loaded with fodder offers of trash monsters for legendary creatures. With the release of Pokémon Bank and Transporter, Nintendo missed a golden opportunity and instead had to deal with a server overload and long delays, delays that still plague a majority of the player base. To me, this shows lack of anticipation, as they released the application on Christmas Day, failing to anticipate the many children that would be receiving Nintendo 3DS systems and connecting to the eShop to activate their systems. It also shows a terrible system as Nintendo had been flooded and could not resolve the system for several days. Steam had a similar issue with Left For Dead 2 being given away for free, and their systems were fully operational in hours.

A third issue that could be discussed is the police state feeling that Nintendo wants its players to feel. While this could elicit responses such as "This system is kid friendly, it needs to be," I think Nintendo is losing players in its older age group with such measures. A lot of the core Nintendo audience has grown up and it is sad to see that Nintendo is not growing up with them. When using the MiiVerse community or just the online in general, there lies censorship, but what makes things laughable is that the censors are relatively easily bypassed by adding in accent marks to terms, or using derivations of letters to make the point. The online infrastructure, to an older player such as myself, feels old and dated and so restrictive that it is not a surprise that people are flooding into other systems.

And on a last point, does anyone else feel that the Nintendo 3DS online in general is just not up to par as it was on the DS systems? Online games are sparse to find as of late, relying more on StreetPass and SpotPass, aspects that are downright weak for those who live in sheltered communities with little interaction. Games that should have had online are limited to local multiplayer, such as Fire Emblem: Awakening, or Star Fox 64 3D. It feels that with each generation Nintendo gets lazier and lazier and fails to meet the demands of its audiences.

I am going to leave you guys with that. If you are just tuning in, what do you find is weak about the Nintendo online infrastructure? Do you see any ways that you can improve on it? How do you feel regarding censorship on the infrastructure? Do you like or dislike the lack of overall organization on the eShop system, and do you wish for a friendlier alternative to the Friend Code system? Chime off in the comments below!

 

[Tom Bombadildo]

Ugh. Nintendo and the Internet just don't mix well. It's nice and all to have a company that believes in local gaming (I admit I have been disappointed to see some games with no option for local multiplayer, as I'm not generally one to play online), but to sort of...give it a back seat in this day and age? Absolutely silly.

Hell, their whole stance on the internet in general is just dumb. "NO CUTSCENES IN SSB BECAUSE THE INTERNET RUINED THEM "

 

[gamefan5]

What could have been an interesting start, shown with MK7's online, has decided to fall short, as seen with the release of most online games after.

 

[Ashtonx]

Personally i think nintendo got stuck in the 90's

I live in a small town in poland, i dunno if there's even one other person who got 3ds, not to mention same games, I can easily see tons of wireless routers wherever i go, access net wherever i got. Yet i have never had any online interaction with my ds consoles. I'd prolly buy an extra adapter to connect my nds which seems to be unable to deal with newer security on wifi but even that seems pointless cos I'd have to look up friend codes online and hope a person I'll add will play the same game at the same time I do.

Honestly nintendo doesn't seem to understand wtf is internet and all they do seems like a bad joke.

 

[Ryukouki]

Ugh. Nintendo and the Internet just don't mix well. It's nice and all to have a company that believes in local gaming (I admit I have been disappointed to see some games with no option for local multiplayer, as I'm not generally one to play online), but to sort of...give it a back seat in this day and age? Absolutely silly.

Hell, their whole stance on the internet in general is just dumb. "NO CUTSCENES IN SSB BECAUSE THE INTERNET RUINED THEM "

I just find that internet is like a necessity and sticking it to local multiplayer is just lame and one of the reasons why I almost feel like jumping ship and going to game on the Mac PC. As far as SSB and cutscenes....

What could have been an interesting start, shown with MK7's online, has decided to fall short, as seen with the release of most online games after.

I agree! I think that Mario Kart had a decent start, and after that it just petered out.

 

[GamerzHell9137]

Internet and Nintendo? You can't get these 2 words in one sentence.
I have couple of Nintendo 1st party games that have online and whatever game i try to play i get disconnected by the server(communication error), rarely i can play Luigi's Mansion 2 but most of the time it takes about 10 min to get the Communication Error out of the way and to start to play it, while 3rd Party games work perfectly fine (I know that my speed sucks but they should make the people who has bad internet like me let play games online)
And yeah Miiverse,Count of how much u can play a Demo,eShop and all other stuff are bad too.

 

[GameWinner]

No cutscenes in SSB because of the internet was probably the dumbest thing I've ever heard last year regarding Nintendo...

Edit: Just finished the last paragraph.
You pretty much nailed everything wrong with their online infrastructure.

 

[Dork]

Other than the fact that games are still tied to the system on Wii U and no 3DS messaging, there is nothing really wrong with the infrastructure of Nintendo Network. Street/Spotpass, eShop, and Miiverse are all great features and the online in games works great. Luigi's Mansion 2 and Kid Icarus online are a blast.

 

[trumpet-205]

Wow, you pretty much stated every problems with Nintendo Network.

* On the issue of StreetPass, this is simply a concept that only works well in Japan. In Japan people often commutes in public transportation, and public street are often crowded. Thous StreetPass works well. Take it to western countries however, it is a complete failure.
* On the issue of eShop, it is indeed clunky and disorganized. I wish Nintendo followed Sony's example in that setting up an online eshop store that can be viewed by PC. You bought games from this online store then use features similar to Sony's download list to download games.
* On the issue of server outage, Nintendo simply did not plan ahead for holiday season. The fact that they had to resort to rotating NN availability (similar to rotating power outage) means its servers were not up to task.
* On the issue of Swap Note, Nintendo chose to pull the plug rather than supervise online activity. Rather than dealing with problem head on Nintendo chose to run away from it.

Definitely dtich the friend code system. And the no SSB cut scene because of Internet spoiler, simply a lame excuse from NIntendo.

 

[calmwaters]

You can only have so much censorship. After that, it falls to the people being censored to decide how they will behave under such censorship. Me, I don't have a problem not using swear words or pornos in my posts in MiiVerse (once I get a Wii U: yes, I'm still dirt poor); some of you aren't like this, though, I think.

And what do you mean by "growing up"? Do you mean that as you get older, your mouth gets fouler and sex is constantly on your mind? Or do you mean that games like Mario aren't enough for them and they need more violent titles to be satisfied when they game.

Now about the online; does this mean that the NNID's still consist of numbers that you have to manually input into your friends list? That is bad; you should just be able to add their name. Think Facebook. Most of this sounds like they devote a little too much time to the games instead of improving the online infrastructure. I guess I'll find this out when I get my NNID and start adding people; I thought the NNID worked just like the usernames of Xbox Live. StreetPass/SpotPass are great, but you can also implement just regular connections for people who are miles away; again, I find it hard to believe that Nintendo left out long range connections and stuck with the "You've got to be 30 ft. away from the person to trade.". That sounds like the GameBoy trading method. And you should be able to categorize them alphabetically or by type in your box.

One more thing: was the Wii Shop Channel's layout clunky? And if so, does the Wii U's eShop improve on this or is it worse? I don't remember complaining about having to scroll down to see games, but there were twelve categories you could use to sort through the types of games in the Shop Channel. There was also a company sort, price sort, latest games, etc.

 

[KingVamp]

I'll give a more constructive criticism and read later, but for now I'll say that people are hyperbolizing the situation.



edit: I guess that my main point is that points presented are exaggerated.
Also, it seems a true account is coming. I hope they keep things free.

 

[trumpet-205]

Now about the online; does this mean that the NNID's still consist of numbers that you have to manually input into your friends list?

For 3DS yes, friend code is still needed.

One more thing: was the Wii Shop Channel's layout clunky? And if so, does the Wii U's eShop improve on this or is it worse? I don't remember complaining about having to scroll down to see games, but there were twelve categories you could use to sort through the types of games in the Shop Channel. There was also a company sort, price sort, latest games, etc.

3DS eshop layout is by far one of the worst I have to dealt with.

Wii U and Wii layout are better. Between them that have different layout, but Wii U has more usable layout than WIi.

 

[signz]

While I absolutely love Spotpass and Streetpass features, I agree that actual onlinemode shouldn't suffer because of those. A fine example is Mario Kart 7, you can get ghost data via Spot- and Streetpass and also have a proper onlinemode, where you can drive against friends, foes and random players from all over the world.
Then you have games like Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate without any onlinemode (apart from the whole shenanigans with a Wii U and that Wii U Lan Adapter thingie which doesn't make much sense - if you have a Wii U, why wouldn't you get MH3U for that instead?). MH4 does seem to have that at least, which I'm also really looking forward to.

Pokemon X/Y - fantastic PSS, GTS could be better sure, but the thing about Pokemon Bank and Pokemon Transporter really bugs me. I mean, sure, I can wait but I have been looking forward to putting all of my X Pokemon onto the Bank and start a new game, with a 5 IV Cyndaquil as my starter, but noo. Nintendo's servers from 1983 weren't enough for the new 3DS users who wanted to register a NNID (Nintendo should have learned after the first time..) and also Japan using Bank and Transporter. Why couldn't they just have done it a different way, with Bank and/or Transporter being locally saved on your SD. Sure, that way people could just clone their Pokemon, but at the same time they could have released Pokemon X/Y patch 1.3 which adds some check to, well, check some data to make sure it hasn't changed since last time it was used. (ok, that could be problematic for people who got either both games or multiple copies, but that could also have been solved somehow I bet) With 1.3, one would have to update or they wouldn't be able to use Bank/Transporter at all.

Oh well, SSB and cutscenes.. Can't say that really bothers me personally, but I get why you guys don't like it - especially for such a silly reason.. If every developer thought like that, no game ever would have gotten cutscenes.

 

[emigre]

I'll give a more constructive criticism and read later, but for now I'll say that people are hyperbolizing the situation.

Nintendo's online infrastructure is utter shit. They still haven't implemented something as simple as a fucking account system.

I bought Mario 3 on my Wii and if I want to play it on my 3DS, I have to buy it again.

I bought Final Fantasy VII on my PS3 and I can play it on my Vita without having to pay for it again.

Cross buy please Nintendo.

 

[3bbb7]

tbh I've never had an issue with friend codes. They can be just as much of an issue as a tag. instead of letters theyre numbers though.
Yeah each game has a different friend code (pre 3DS) but do you really find it that big of a deal to register a friend code every game you play with a friend, only once?

Kind of off topic but the DS still could do something the ps3 can't. The ps3 has one, only one connection. Now this may not seem like an issue, but for someone who constantly switches places and brings a PS3 with, it's an issue and takes quite a while to switch connections. Come on sony, it's 2014 and the PS3 can still only use one connection at a time. The DS, released in 2004 and is a handheld console could store up to three.
inb4buyaps4

 

[kimboogie]

Pokemon Bank is conclusive proof that nintendo can't do this kind of things.

 

[Crass]

Nintendo has always had a backwards view towards online gameplay. I remember Iwata said 10 years ago that he felt games with online capabilities were just a gimmick/fad and that the majority of the customer base didn't care about online gameplay.

http://www.gamespot.com/articles/iwata-customers-do-not-want-online-games/1100-6102100/

Obviously they've changed their stance sense then, but it is blatantly obvious that the head honchos at Nintendo aren't very concerned about it even today.

 

[Chocolina]

Its ironic that Nintendo, being the first console maker to experiment with internet (SNES), is also the worst at providing an online experience.

As crappy as it is, atleast its free. Still Nintendo just doesnt seem to get "it" outside of marketing and game developing.

 

[Flame]

I normally am bit biased towards Nintendo because they own Pokemon. but in this i agree, Nintendo needs to invest some real money in its online infrastructure... or we might see Pokemon on steam owned by Capcom where i need to buy a DLC to evolve a Pokemon if Nintendo still play hard ball . I like steam but i want to play Pokemon on a Nintendo console and not any other console or platform.

 

[xxNathanxx]

That's a pretty good summary of all that is wrong with Nintendo's online services. Can't immediately think of anything more to add.

tbh I've never had an issue with friend codes. They can be just as much of an issue as a tag. instead of letters theyre numbers though.
Yeah each game has a different friend code (pre 3DS) but do you really find it that big of a deal to register a friend code every game you play with a friend, only once?

Kind of off topic but the DS still could do something the ps3 can't. The ps3 has one, only one connection. Now this may not seem like an issue, but for someone who constantly switches places and brings a PS3 with, it's an issue and takes quite a while to switch connections. Come on sony, it's 2014 and the PS3 can still only use one connection at a time. The DS, released in 2004 and is a handheld console could store up to three.
inb4buyaps4

- It's essentially the same thing but I think you'll find it hard to disagree when I tell you it's easier to say "add me, my username is hugepenis69" than "add me, my friend code number is 0118 999 881 999 119 7253", and it's definitely easier to remember the first if the conversation is oral.
- Yes, that's true, but the PS3 isn't a handheld and it makes no sense in a general use case that a PS3 would change location so often that more than a single connection wouldn't suffice.