New franchises from Nintendo

[A Black Falcon]

Actually, it wasn't just to protect children, though that might be what they said here, it is also because they think that Japanese gamers don't play online games and thought that the best way to get them to play would be to remove all "potential problems" -- like being able to talk (and thus possibly annoy/harrass/whatever) to the other players when online.

And maybe that's fine for people who have never played online games, but as I've said repeatedly, for people who HAVE... I played online games before that had no interaction -- Microsoft's automatchmaking Hearts/Go/etc games that came with WinME. You can just send default messages from a specific short list, not make your own. It dissasociates you from the game and really makes it only feel slightly different from offline... and the DS, where the only "interaction" is your user icon in Mario Kart? Yeah. Major problem. How much fun is online gaming without being able to talk to the other players? Not much!

If someone stalks and kills someone using the voice chat feature of the XBox, you can BET it'll be a major news story for at least an entire week. And they are more likely to say "are your KIDS safe?" not "are YOU safe?".

There was a story about "children at risk from Xbox live" at least once since the X360's launch...

I think the matter is simple though. Nintendo merely need point out that logically it is the responsiblility of the parents to teach their kids to NEVER reveal personal information to strangers online, and that logically the blame has to lie with the stalker alone for the actions the stalker took. You can't blame Scotch if their tape is used for some dark purpose. The DS isn't a tool used to hurt people, it is a device to instigate FRIENDSHIP and LITERALLY GENERATE MAGICAL RAINBOWS.

Have you heard Reggie defending this stuff with ridiculous comments like how it's good that there is no unified online service because there might be people you might want as a friend in one game and not in another, how Nintendo's focus is on "quick play and playing with friends" essentially... which means "just like the DS -- dissasociating, pointless random matchmaking with no communication or with people you already know"... and completely misses the whole point of online gaming. If you want to just play with people you already know... well, that's like PC multiplayer gaming before 1996 -- via IP/modem. Just type in your friends IP address to connect!

... There's a reason that online modes replaced direct IP/modem. It stunk and was barely usable. Same here, except with a random matchmaking thing too that kind of disguises how terrible this system is, until you realize how badly lacking the options are... seriously, I play Guild Wars and Warcraft III online. I wouldn't much, I'm sure, if I couldn't talk with the other people (friends list? they're almost never on, so that's not a factor.).