Only good if you play online only with real life friends.

But for the online community, it's better having a name.

In 3DS you are just a random number. In Live/PSN the players have personalities,

I'm just trying to imagine playing LittleBigPlanet with code IDs. lol. "Stage Created by: 2734013083".

Er, it could still say "stage created by John" and have his Mii standing next to it waving.  That sounds better than saying "stage created by xXJohn420Xx" or whatever.

Having a unique ID that allows for non-unique names is always going to be a better solution.

this.

I think that the best solution is a name ID like Live/PSN but with a option to write a "description" when you add your friend, or to change the name that you see to whatever you want.

Why are some people acting like your friend code will be your gamer tag? When you play games online it won't say, "You were killed by 1004500678" because they still use nicknames / Mii names last I checked right? This is great news because it means Nintendo is finally starting to take online seriously which could mean very big things for certain franchises. *coughPokemoncoughSmashBroscough*

It encourages community, it allows you to use literally any name you want with your friends.  I don't think you understand how this works, the name is going to be tied to your system/Mii/ID.  You can name your handle anything, but that's going to be consistent across everything.  If you want to be Hunk or Wesker, you'll also be Hunk or Wesker in Mario Kart, SSF4, DOA, Animal Crossing, Monster Hunter, etc.

This isn't any different from the system XBLA or PSN has, only it allows you to use a non-unique name.  Like in real life.

Well, that's better than notinhg I suppose :/

How's your real life community?  Destroyed?

On Wii you can use different Miis usually, but that's because it's a home console and Nintendo views them as shared devices (while handhelds are personal).  3DS in all likelihood won't go that route, it'll probably be tied to the system name.

How is that worse than being charged like $10 to change your XBL gamertag? I think it'd be fun to change my name to Weej when I play Luigi in Smash Bros or ImGaryOak in Pokemon if I felt like it. Why is freedom a negative in this case?

Whew, thank god. Those individual friend codes are already a pain to enter, but then on Wii they add insult to injury by making one per game! I never understood that logic, especially considering the Wii also had a "system" friend code as well..

The achievement thing I can take it or leave it, doesn't really add anything to the gameplay obviously.. But what gamer doesn't like showing off their gaming achievements?