Satoru Iwata, president of Nintendo has gone on record with his thoughts of the Wii friends code system. He’s a father, with a daughter, so he’s letting his own personal judgment get in the way of a good community built game system.
In talking about the open access of the Internet he said, “I as a father do not feel like allowing my daughter be engaged in that kind of world.” He’s more inclined to protect his children from the dangers of the Internet and random (often insulting) people by requiring a 1:1 paring with real friends.
For many gamers the Wii friends code system is far from perfect. It’s so far from perfect its a barrier to entry and any form of fun on the console platform. Nobody is against protecting their children, a parent will be the first to admit they’re desire to protect their kids over all else, but clearly someone isn’t thinking outside the box on this topic.
The only way to protect your children is to enforce a large numeric key which you must hand deliver (or e-mail) to your friends in order to play? We’ve got more creative enforcement in child safety on our TV sets using the VCHIP which allows parents to password protect certain television programming.
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Gamertag has posted what they claim is a flyer sent to developers advertising the “Project Cafe” (the alleged placeholder name for the next-gen Nintendo console) SDK, with some interesting claims:
Well, I got the same rumor, about a new console being developed by Nintendo, targeted for 2012. I am not the console expert, so please feel free to bash me for the following:
While I think the new console to be the real deal, I also think 2012 is a bit too soon. The market for 3DS was not yet properly exploited.
Now, about the SDK, Nintendo was not the most license friendly company. That lead (obviously) to a poor game library. Was that enough to wake up Nintendo? Is this the reason for having such a friendly SDK?
I say yes, that is a good reason. Actually, that is also a good lesson being taught here by MSFT.
However, from “making a friendly Nintendo SDK” to making an “easy to port SDK for all consoles” there is one more thing needed: access to the ins and outs of all consoles. Why would MSFT and Sony give Nintendo access to their technology? How would that benefit them?
Could it be an anti-competition scheme involved, where all developers settle for similar products with just little differences, only to impose a certain price level across the board?
To me, the SDK raises more questions than the piece of hardware.
Well, Nintendo confirmed it.
“Nintendo confirmed it.” 😀 The anti-competition scheme? 😀
Well it’s like there useing old ideas again. I remember they trying this with the Game cube and micro GBA’s . I’m sure its better tech this time around and I hope they have the “hard core” in mind this time around.