Get off your asses, Nintendo
May 20, 2010 8:34 am GamesI’ve been a lifelong Nintendo fan, as multiple past posts on this blog can attest. While many Nintendophiles have been understandably grumbling about the Wii, and how Nintendo seems fit to only let their top-tier franchises trickle out here and there while third-party shovelware rules the roost, I’m here to complain about something that should’ve been fixed a long time ago: Nintendo’s atrociously bad online service.
No one was expecting Nintendo to have an Xbox Live-like infrastructure when the Wii launched in 2006, but here we are three and a half years later…and it’s still a worthless piece of shit. While the whole Friend Code system is a mess (you need to trade unique ID numbers with friends just to play online for 99% of games), the biggest problem is that downloadable content and games cannot be recovered or transferred. This affects not only the Wii, but also the DSi (and, I’m assuming, the upcoming 3DS).
Put simply, if your Wii or DSi craps out, and you had a bunch of downloads on either system…you’re up shit’s creek without a paddle. You can’t redownload your games and other stuff for free, since there’s no centralized “account” on Nintendo’s consoles, unlike Xbox Live and the PlayStation Network. I’ve heard tales that if you hassle Nintendo enough, they can recover your files for you, but you shouldn’t have to do that in the first place! Wii and DSi downloads are tied to your hardware’s unique ID number, but there’s also a record of the purchases you’ve made on Nintendo’s servers. Furthermore, if you have a Club Nintendo account, downloads are linked to it and recorded there, as well. With all of these records in place, there’s no reason why Nintendo can’t make it a much easier process for users to recover their downloads.
Once the 3DS comes along, DSi users are really screwed. To date, there’s been no indication whatsoever that downloadable content is transferable to the new console…which means you’ll have to buy all of that shit all over again just to use it on your 3DS!
C’mon, Nintendo. A few tweaks to the system firmware would solve this problem, as the servers are clearly set up for it on your end. Give the gamers what they want!
June 9th, 2010 at 12:08 PM
yea i hear you on this one.. nintendo needs to do something they are being left behind in the on line game market.. they do have some good games but not being able to talk to people and make new friends online is killing it. i would like to be able to play a multi-player fps game and talk to my team and make friends with out going on a forum and typing in my 16+ friend code for each game that i want to play.. nintendo should have used gamer tags.. can nintendo see that millions of people play xbox live.. yea we pay 50 bucks a year but we get all the cool shit.. nintendo is once again in the past great console good ideas bad online..stop acting like we are all 6 years old..we do live in the real world nintendo we can take a bad words from people if you dont like it mute them..