What is it with Nintendo and friend codes

[shmokes]

I know I seem to have it out for Nintendo these days.  I really don't.  While I have no time to enjoy it, and in spite of my complaints, I do love my Wii and expect it to provide me with countless hours of joy.  But I can't help but take the big N to task one more time.

WHAT THE ---fudgesicle--- IS THE DEAL WITH FRIEND CODES???

Seriously . . . what the ---fudgesicle--- are they doing?  This is not open to debate.  This isn't a matter of taste.  It ain't personal preference.  EVERYONE hates the friend code system.  I mean that quite literally.  Right down to the last customer.  Hate.  They hate it.  People would hate the system even if your Wii number was the only code you had to deal with.  Even with just that one single number the system they've set up to communicate with others is just supremely moronic.  By itself it is nearly the worst possible system imaginable.  One would have to strain to the very limits of his ability, with intent, oh yes, intent to come up with the most inconvenient, annoying, counter-intuitive friend system in order to think up the Wii number system.  And you would think, at that point, they would have stopped there and said, "Excellent.  Congratulations.  We have achieved what nobody thought we could do.  Our work is done.  The system is as retarded as it is possible to be retarded."

But no.  Some brilliant, but deranged savant appeared.  He said, "Nintendo!  You have not quite reached your goal, but there's still time to correct your error.  Act quickly.  Don't just use a single, sixteen digit number that must be traded with each and every person that any given player wants to communicate with.  Don't just make it impossible to trade those numbers directly from the Wii over the internet.  Don't just make it so when one person puts in another person's Wii number, the other person doesn't even get asked if he wants to accept a friendship with the originator of the transaction.  Don't just bury the Wii number in a nest of pages, so it is extremely difficult to find.  There is still one more thing you can do to really make your customers hate going online with their Wii.

Why not make them repeat the process over and over again, for every single friend in their address book every time they get a new game?    Do this and you will truly have developed the absolute worst online gaming community system ever.




Seriously.  Why?  Just . . . . why?  WTF?

[SavannahLion]

Can I add this?

I own the Wii. I'm one of the first adapters. I was fortunate enough to have an insider snag a Wii for me as it was coming in on the docks. No, it's not stolen  it's paid for, I just didn't let it touch a store shelf. I love my Wii (literally and figuratively  )

That said....

I hate the SD memory card slot. It's insanely under utilized.

Game saves... yippee.... Pictures and MP3's.... interesting when you're drunk. What about transferring meaningful data, real, data? Wii codes would be a good start. How about reading a simple text file so I don't have to put in long data? I know not everyone uses a 63 character password for their wireless network, but damn, at least throw us a bone or something.

There is so much insane power hiding in such a little SD card. Just one little nudge. Just one small snippet of code. Give the SD card slot the capabilities it so richly deserves.

[RTSDaddy2]

I've agreed with the codes for a while - had not given much thought to the SD card, but to both I will say:

 

[mcfreak]

Reminds me of the IPv4 to IPv6 implementation:

Xbox360: mcfreak
Wii: 3533 8265 2653 1105

IP Version 4: 82.165.224.115
IP Version 6: 2001:0db8:85a3:08d3:1319:8a2e:0370:7334

I just don't see either ever working for the main stream audience. 

[shmokes]

And you missed one of the biggest drawbacks of all when it comes to the SD card.  Code cannot be run from the SD card.  So no storing VC games on it.  If you buy too many games and fill up the Wii's internal 512MB of memory you can swap VC games out of the Wii's internal memory onto SD card, but only for storage.  If you ever want to play those games again you have to copy them back to the Wii's internal memory first, which means taking something else from the internal memory and moving it over to the SD card to make room.  Why make us play musical chairs?  Why not just allow the SD card to act as a direct extension of the internal memory?  Dumb.

[grueinthebox]

I'll play Devil's Advocate here...  With Nintendo always trying to be the more kid/family friendly game maker, friend codes make it easy to limit who kids can interact with online.  Wide open systems like Xbox Live that don't need codes allow one to easily find and interact with complete strangers, a lot of whom in the gamer community tend to make a lot of use of inappropriate language, images, behavior, etc.  Requiring a friend code removes the possibility of entirely random encounters with other individuals and prevent things like this: http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2007/08/31.

It would be nice to have an option (parental lock?) that would make it such that things do/do not require a friend code to connect vs. just meeting up with people online.  Of course, then parents would have to figure out how to use it...

[Howard_Casto]

It would be nice to have an option (parental lock?) that would make it such that things do/do not require a friend code to connect vs. just meeting up with people online.  Of course, then parents would have to figure out how to use it...

Well, see, that's the main reason friend codes are useless.  The wii does indeed have parental controls, and one of the options is to restrict online access.  It could easily be expanded upon to only allow connections on certian users or games.  All friend codes do is give me a headache when all I'm trying to do is frikkin exchange tokens in mp3 so I can by the ss utility and take some snaps of the secret ending!  Now that I've beaten the game and discovered it'll only let you send the images to other wiis (not any email address) I'm less interested in doing so though.

[SavannahLion]

And you missed one of the biggest drawbacks of all when it comes to the SD card.  Code cannot be run from the SD card. 

Holy crap, I forgot all about that. If I recall correctly, this was one of the Wii's intended features. You were supposed to be able to "expand" the available memory by changing out SD cards.

I read that Nintendo was "forced" to disable this due to copyright concerns.

[shmokes]

Don't believe it.  If you can run code from the Xbox 360 or PS3's hard drives, there's no legal reason Nintendo would have problems with the SD card.  At the very least they could still tie the games to your particular console, which would suck cos you couldn't transport them to a friend's house which defeats the purpose of having portable media in the first place, but it's better than nothing.  But, yeah, there's only a technical difference between flash media and the magnetic media used by Nintendo's competitors.  For all intents and purpose they are the same thing, so don't buy any ---That which is odiferous and causeth plants to grow--- coming from Nintendo about having their hand forced.  Hell, they are the copyright holder for probably 70% of the stuff released on Virtual Console, and they're the gatekeeper to a very lucrative market for third parties to start making money off of ---steaming pile of meadow muffin--- again that's just been sitting on shelves for the past 20 years.  Nintendo can do whatever they want with it.  Nobody's strong-arming them into anything.

[SavannahLion]

Don't believe it. At the very least they could still tie the games to your particular console, which would suck cos you couldn't transport them to a friend's house which defeats the purpose of having portable media in the first place, but it's better than nothing.

I don't. That's the exact "legal" reason that was given for that. Even if that's true, at least the reasoning it's a bit more plausible than the asinine Magic Gate SONY ---smurfing--- uses. I have an RPG save game that I can't copy to a different memory card or do anything significant with (other than deleting). I asked tech support as to the reasoning behind this and their claim is they don't want people cheating....

CHEATING?!? It's a ---smurfing--- RPG... that's not even ONLINE! Who cares if anyone CHEATS on a game that's not even ONLINE!?! It's not ---smurfing--- Swordquest.

[abrannan]

Reminds me of the IPv4 to IPv6 implementation:

Xbox360: mcfreak
Wii: 3533 8265 2653 1105

IP Version 4: 82.165.224.115
IP Version 6: 2001:0db8:85a3:08d3:1319:8a2e:0370:7334

I just don't see either ever working for the main stream audience. 

Of course, who outside the IT industry works with IP addresses anymore?

IPv4 with DNS:  forum.arcadecontrols.com
IPv6 with DNS:  forum.arcadecontrols.com

Wow, you're right, that *is* so much more complicated!

[lcddream]

what if you don't use dhcp with your home network?

[Samstag]

what if you don't use dhcp with your home network?

You can still access your machines by name, whether you use DHCP or static addressing.

[shmokes]

The most retarded thing about IPv6 in my opinion is the semi-colon.  Why?  Why  use a separator that requires the use of the shift key if you want to type it?  That's just dumb.  If you need to change things for a reason, like the current system is running low on numbers, fine.  But don't change things just for the sake of changing them.  Improve them or leave them the way they are.

[RTSDaddy2]

I debated about posting this here - it's not a cure all for boredom with the Wii's SD card, but it is kind of neat if you've not tried it....

I downloaded the newest version of Red Kawa's Wii Video Converter last night (had not updated nor played with it in a while) and it's become even easier to use and make videos to show on the Wii - via photo center - thanks to the program's "Wizard" feature.

I still haven't got this figured out yet, but there is some way to actually (I think) get the videos to show on the Wii from the PC via wireless...I don't know, not anywhere NEAR expert on this stuff. 

Point being, I just copy mine to the SD card.  The one I tried out today was a piece of Anime, (Battle of the Planet, 20 - 25 minutes long) but by using the "best" setting on sound and video in the wizard, I got a nice, relatively clean video to show on the Wii at 4:3....not nearly as pixelated as in early versions of the program. On a 16:9 setting, from far away it looks ok too - slight pixelation can be noticed, but not as noticeable (best I recall) as in earlier versions.

There is, of course, the simple fact that you cannot fit very many videos on an SD card, and it takes a heck of a long time to move them....but I had to give the Kawa team props again for trying their hardest....the program's come a long way since December 2006!

[shmokes]

That is good news to me for the simple fact that it shows independent development for the Wii, but I'll never even try out that software for the simple reason that I have a modded Xbox hooked up to the same TV that my Wii is hooked to.  No matter what, the Wii cannot be as good a media center as the original Xbox can.  Even if Nintendo themselves devoted all their best programmers to the task, XBMC is capable of more than the Wii can be.  It's capable of HD, 5.1 surround sound, IR remote controlled, built-in hard drive.  Wii cannot overcome these limitations with software.  It can do a helluva a lot of things better than the Xbox, but media center isn't one of them.

[SavannahLion]

The most retarded thing about IPv6 in my opinion is the semi-colon.  Why?  Why  use a separator that requires the use of the shift key if you want to type it?  That's just dumb.  If you need to change things for a reason, like the current system is running low on numbers, fine.  But don't change things just for the sake of changing them.  Improve them or leave them the way they are.

For the same retarded reason that every URI is required to have a //: somewhere in there. Why Microsoft paths require a #:\ and \ where the rest of the sane computing world actually uses a /. Why dynamic URI's requires a ---smurfing--- ? before any variables.

When this first came up in a class, we debated about this very same point for yonkers. Someone finally located a white paper that specifically addresses this point. Amongst several reasons, it's to make it easier to parse. The selection of the : was carefully chosen because very few addresses utilize a colon in their path (except for MS, but no sane scientist cares about MS). So why not a semi-colon instead? Look at the URL above. See all those ;'s everywhere? That's why. They didn't want existing parsers (like PHP) to barf all over the new IPv6 format.

Basically, it's a ---smurfy--- hack job.

[shmokes]

MAC addresses use colons. 

[SavannahLion]

MAC addresses use colons. 

Only artists and authors care about Macs. 

[slycrel]

MAC addresses use colons. 

Only artists and authors care about Macs. 

That's not the kind of mac he is talking about.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mac_address

[shmokes]

My guess is that anyone who has even heard of IPv6, let alone can use the word parser in a sentence, knows exactly what a MAC address is.  I'm pretty sure he's not serious.   

[SavannahLion]

My guess is that anyone who has even heard of IPv6, let alone can use the word parser in a sentence, knows exactly what a MAC address is.  I'm pretty sure he's not serious.   

Hence the 


MAC != IPv6. MAC and IP don't even reside at the same network level so the argument is moot.

It's not really possible for someone to type in http://ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff/index.html (A gobal MAC address), and get connect to my server.

[abrannan]

MAC addresses use colons. 

Only in certain display systems.  Some systems display MAC addresses with a - between bytes, some with no delimiter at all.  Colons are not required.  Of course, the dots aren't strictly required in IPv4, either.

[shmokes]

But a URL does use colons, and I could type http://2001:0db8:85a3:08d3:1319:8a2e:0370:7334/index.html and reach your server (assuming that's a public IP address).  I'm seriously having a hard time buying this justification for switching to the colon for the IPv6 delimiter.  For example, IPv4 uses the period as a delimiter, and there are periods ALL OVER THE PLACE in any given URL.  In any given anything, really.  It's the most common punctuation in regular written English, it is used as a delimiter in domain names, it is meaningful in all programming languages.  The U.S. uses it as a delimiter for currency.  It's commonly used as a delimiter in phone numbers (though not as often as a hyphen). 

So, yeah.  We've been getting by with periods in IP addresses for quite some time now, and I think we could continue getting by just fine   I say it was an arbitrary decision and the parsing thing is the bogus justification given by the creators when pressed as to why they switched to the colon, simply because saying, "We just felt like we were ready for a change" wouldn't sound very professional.   

[SavannahLion]

Would the fact that IPv4 uses decimal notation and IPv6 uses colon-hexadecimal notation be a more satisfactory answer?

Look, there are multiple reasons for the selection of a :. I cited two.

As a developer, it's not my job to make the use of . or : as a point of contention. My job is to create software that function the way it's intended. Writing code to tokenize . or : is trivial at best and really low on the priority list of things to worry about.

If you're really hot about this topic, go read the scads of RFC's on this and push for a different format with IPv8 or something.

[shmokes]

Would the fact that IPv4 uses decimal notation and IPv6 uses colon-hexadecimal notation be a more satisfactory answer?

No.  Why not use the letter X as a delimiter?  I often see hexidecimal numbers proceeded by a 0x prefix (Windows stop errors immediately spring to mind).

Seriously, dude, have yourself a beer.  I'm pretty sure everyone can agree that IPv6 is more cumbersome than IPv4, both to remember and to type.  The fact that "writing code to tokenize . or : is trivial at best" is exactly my gripe.  If it's trivial, why change the character they were using, to a less-convenient sub-character that requires the shift key be pressed every time you use it?  But it's nothing to get your panties in a twist over.  I feel like I should confess to you that in my heart of hearts, I really don't give a ---steaming pile of meadow muffin---.  We're just talkin'.

[SavannahLion]

Think of it this way. This is just another stopgap solution on our way to having that really cool dancing toaster give us our toast every morning.

I just hope we get that before I ---smurfing--- turn 90.