20th June 2013, 5:40 AM
Well, most likely not that different. I expect the differences come down to the language settings and which nationality your profile gets registered for, making it simply impossible to sign up for the Japanese eShop. Internally, how they handle games should be nearly identical. The only real exceptions I could think of would POSSIBLY be any games that used the existing fonts in the OS instead of their own, and frankly outside of the PC world that seems unlikely.
However, unifying the OS would solve the issue with loading other region's cartridges. The other aspect comes down to making digital purchases linked ONLY to your online Nintendo Club account. At the moment, it is permanently linked to the online account created on that system when you first link up to Nintendo's servers. You CAN link the shops from Wii to Wii U, from DSi to 3DS, to your Nintendo Club account (join the Nintendo fun club today Mac!), and thus a record of ALL your purchases across all these systems is kept (you can look at this log of purchases on Nintendo.com). So, they CAN link everything to a single account. They just don't seem to be willing to take the next step and divorce the purchases from the hardware it is on. The Wii U is the very first console where individual online profiles per user can be made, but those profiles are all locked to THAT Wii U. So, the steps they need to take involve creating a SINGLE unifying account across all their modern consoles (3DS and Wii U) that can be moved from one console to the next, and with the digital record locked to the profile rather than the hardware.
However, I should add something. The "roaming profile" option exists on the 360, but software is ALSO system locked. Let me explain. So long as you are logged into the profile that bought some content online, you can play that content on any system you want, after verifying your profile online. HOWEVER, you can ONLY play digital content you bought with OTHER profiles on the ORIGINAL SYSTEM you bought the content on. In practice, this works out pretty well. Early on, MS couldn't transfer this system lock from system to system at all, then they had a way to do it if you called in but only under very limited circumstances. Eventually, they finally put a tool to transfer digital content system locks from console to console on their web site. It currently has a 3 month "cool down" between uses though, and it transfers ALL the content assigned to that system at once (with no regard to the profile that originally bought it, so if a family member bought some content, you're getting that transferred to the new system as well).
The reality is, if Nintendo made a transfer utility of that sort and just linked together all your online accounts across systems into a portable single account, they'd instantly be caught up with how Microsoft does things, but as you can see, even that is a bit clunky.
Still, nowhere near as clunky as having one 3DS online account with its own friends list, a Wii U account with it's own friends list, two hardware based "store" accounts outside of either of those online accounts (one for 3DS and one for Wii U), and a Club Nintendo account that "links" the separate hardware based "store" accounts together, but does not link together your online accounts. Oh wait, you CAN link your Wii U online account to your Club Nintendo account, but NOT your 3DS online account and... oh dear I've gone cross eyed....
However, unifying the OS would solve the issue with loading other region's cartridges. The other aspect comes down to making digital purchases linked ONLY to your online Nintendo Club account. At the moment, it is permanently linked to the online account created on that system when you first link up to Nintendo's servers. You CAN link the shops from Wii to Wii U, from DSi to 3DS, to your Nintendo Club account (join the Nintendo fun club today Mac!), and thus a record of ALL your purchases across all these systems is kept (you can look at this log of purchases on Nintendo.com). So, they CAN link everything to a single account. They just don't seem to be willing to take the next step and divorce the purchases from the hardware it is on. The Wii U is the very first console where individual online profiles per user can be made, but those profiles are all locked to THAT Wii U. So, the steps they need to take involve creating a SINGLE unifying account across all their modern consoles (3DS and Wii U) that can be moved from one console to the next, and with the digital record locked to the profile rather than the hardware.
However, I should add something. The "roaming profile" option exists on the 360, but software is ALSO system locked. Let me explain. So long as you are logged into the profile that bought some content online, you can play that content on any system you want, after verifying your profile online. HOWEVER, you can ONLY play digital content you bought with OTHER profiles on the ORIGINAL SYSTEM you bought the content on. In practice, this works out pretty well. Early on, MS couldn't transfer this system lock from system to system at all, then they had a way to do it if you called in but only under very limited circumstances. Eventually, they finally put a tool to transfer digital content system locks from console to console on their web site. It currently has a 3 month "cool down" between uses though, and it transfers ALL the content assigned to that system at once (with no regard to the profile that originally bought it, so if a family member bought some content, you're getting that transferred to the new system as well).
The reality is, if Nintendo made a transfer utility of that sort and just linked together all your online accounts across systems into a portable single account, they'd instantly be caught up with how Microsoft does things, but as you can see, even that is a bit clunky.
Still, nowhere near as clunky as having one 3DS online account with its own friends list, a Wii U account with it's own friends list, two hardware based "store" accounts outside of either of those online accounts (one for 3DS and one for Wii U), and a Club Nintendo account that "links" the separate hardware based "store" accounts together, but does not link together your online accounts. Oh wait, you CAN link your Wii U online account to your Club Nintendo account, but NOT your 3DS online account and... oh dear I've gone cross eyed....
"On two occasions, I have been asked [by members of Parliament], 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able to rightly apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question." ~ Charles Babbage (1791-1871)