You know something, after hearing this I can understand why Nintendo does the friend codes thing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vCwN4Vk_vi4

On the upside some funny XBox Live stuff. This was good.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gM2Jxc4zI90

MORE fun I found!

John Lucas

As soon as nintendo rids themselves of the Friends Code, I will at least have to admit their moving the right way.

hmm. i've never played MMORPG's, or any of these XBox live games. are they all like this?

now i have a better understanding to Nintendo's logic!

it's nice, a company that dares to forego profit to provide the gamer an enjoyable experience, instead of having to deal with this kind of crap.

on a related note, i've always hoped for a way to encourage civil conversations in forums, like making revealing identity a must. that's the problem Wikipedia is having with reliable sources, and they're beginning to move in the direction of contributor identification.

Could Nintendo actually be a step ahead of the curve? It would be truly, truly remarkable if they really are, as opposed to just a coincidence.

I'm guessing coincidence... that just appears to be too much foresight. but either way the end result could be revolutionary... the best case scenario (a fanboy wish!) would be to introduce a model for other online networks to follow.

in the past, i've shurgged off friend codes.  i'm like, dude, what if my friends aren't online?  like 2am in the morning?  then i can't play with other guys.  friends only?  what a ridiculous idea.

but after watching that video... i realize that even if i run into that experience just once i would just be totally turned off.

now imagine how the casuals feel.   if casuals are the target audience, Nintendo cannot afford even the 0.1% chance of this happening to one of them, or the word spreads.

if you provide friends code, then it's your fault if you get into those situations.  hey, maybe you even enjoy trashtalking that much.

so for the first time i actually see one plausible reason for this friend code thingy, in additional to that pedophile argument which is just, well, let's just leave it alone.

if nintendo keeps the friend codes to the purest form (i.e. no modifications), the above argument paints a consistent picture.

to the more avid gamers, nintendo says, "you guys just have to figure out a way to get together."  and guess what... websites that exchange friend code abound.  it's inconvenient at this stage, but we'll see how nintendo executes on this front.   

now that i think about it, i have played many online games, but been turned off.

i play a lot of sports games. playing online is quite a thrill... except when the other guy just quits when they're getting their ass whopped. i gave up after a while.

another example is when i was trying to improve my chess skills. i played quite regularly on yahoo for a while... but again, there are always people who quit when they lose, and just let you wait there letting the clock run out. or Magic Online, more examples. in Magic it's not that frequent, but it's very very frustrating when it does happen.

a consequence is that i end up playing with friends--this happened to my online bridge (the card game) habits. you need 4 people to play, and it's VERY, VERY, VERY annoying when one guy just loses connection or decides to leave the table. the quality of the play also varies too much, so in the end, i only play bridge online with friends.

so even without friends code, i ended up only playing with friends anyway!

so we'll just have to see how this friend code experiments turns out. one thing is for sure--it's different from anything i've seen. cumbersome? feels like it. but don't bash it just yet--if the DS or the Wii has taught us anything, don't bet against nintendo.

(my prior view on nintendo and online play is that nintendo sucks at it because their management probably doesn't have much online expertise or understanding, with gaming being their forte. but i might have to change that viewpoint, depending on that friends code outcome.)

That's the funniest conversation I've heard in quite some time.

Friend codes are stupid, Nintendo needs to wake up.

Lingsys, if you don't want to play with someone you don't have to.  You can leave the game.  Being able to play with anyone around the world at random is a great feature.  If you want to play with your friends only then you create a game and all join.  Simple. 

As a parent with young children friends code are a godsend, I know who they are playing against and I'm much more likely to endorse on-line gaming.

 As an adult i want to play with everyone all over the world. Nintendo should make this friend code system a parental control option. Even though i love both the Wii and the DS i HATE Nintendos Online policy.

 Exactly it should just be a security option not forced on all of us...

this is crap. Friend codes don't improve this situation at all! They just make it difficult to game with the people you want to game with.

The proper solution would be to keep the gamertag type system, but with the whole "both people need to add each other before they can talk to each other" system too. So keep the friend code system but get rid of the friend codes.

Also, there is NO excuse for game specific friend codes. NONE. Once someone's on your friends list you should be able to play all games with them.