Reggie Fils-Aime Speaks About 3DS Friend Codes

By 27.01.2011 13

Reggie Fils-Aime Speaks About 3DS Friend Codes on Nintendo gaming news, videos and discussion

In a recent interview with MTV News, US Nintendo president, Reggie Fils-Aime spoke about the Nintendo 3DS and why some decisions were made with the system. Most notably, one of the questions cropped up was about Nintendo's unfavourable Friend Code system, which now been improved on the 3DS. Instead of having to enter Friend Codes for each piece of software, 3DS users now have one code for the system only.

MTV News quizzed Reggie Fils-Aime on why they are needed at all and why the parental controls couldn't just be used to help protect children from adding random people to their friend list. Reggie then responded with the following answer:

The thing that we've learned is that there are some games that you want to battle head to head, but you don't want to necessarily want that other player to have full access to the space.

Probably the best example is something like 'Animal Crossing.' We may want to trade items in 'Animal Crossing,' but do I really want the potential for you to come into my town and maybe disrupt it in some way? That's what Friend Codes are all about. There are certain games where Friend Codes are important. There are other games where, because of the head to head nature of the gameplay, it really isn't necessary.

To sum it up, Friend Codes are used to provide an extra layer of protection between you and an online stranger and limiting their access.

You can also catch the segment of the interview below, in video form.

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EvonM is offline. EvonM 27.01.2011#1

I'm sure there could have been another way

 
J4K is offline. J4K 27.01.2011#2

I'm not going to complain about one system code. It could've been a lot worse.

 
Chris (guest) 27.01.2011#3

Clearly never heard of Partying up

SirLink is offline. SirLink 27.01.2011#4

I agree with his Animal Crossing example. Always watch who you let into your town...there are really just a lot of complete idiots who will either destroy everything in sight or just steal your fruits among other things. I've had it happen to me one or two times already.

Really though, I don't see the issue anyone could have with one friendcode. It's not like you are going to get the name you want anyways, it really makes no difference whatsoever. I hope that you can choose whatever name you want, like in Monster Hunter Tri where the code is your actual ID but the name is the thing that's shown. Smilie

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Yoshindo1 is offline. Yoshindo1 27.01.2011#5

Can't say I thought of the purpose of Friend Codes this way. Although I am not a huge fan of it, I can deal with just one friend code. Better yet if you are on the same wi-fi network, adding your friends doesn't require codes, if I remember correctly.

 
Vorash Kadan 27.01.2011#6

Honestly this makes sence, sure you've got to spend a few extra SECONDS imputing in more info than you'd do on Xbox Live or psn but really you get more out of it. I can appreciate what Nintendo means since I've run into many a douch on PSN....just because my tag is Nintendo_Gamer.

It is not wise to speak on subjects you do not know all facts about, nor is it smart to judge a game based on looks alone. PSN: Nintendo_Gamer 3DS: 4296-3029-7422
 
EdEN is offline. EdEN 27.01.2011#7

It's one code per system and that's it so it's a HUGE step forward from what we've had to deal with the Wii and DS.

 
Darkflame is offline. Darkflame 27.01.2011#8

Weirdly, this is what the WaveFederationProtocol would solve. (What "GoogleWave" pushed first even though that site never cought on, the tech behind it is still very cool).

While people think it was just for emailish stuff, its actually a very advanced data storage/exchange system that would be perfect for this sort of problems.

You have one single ID, but you can let people access your stuff with varying permissions (read/write access etc), updates happen in realtime and no one has to be on the same server.

I think it would be a very powerfull system for games - you could selectively let some people access some of your games and not others, or some in some ways and not others, or even completely public.

http://www.fanficmaker.com <-- Tells some truly terrible tales.
Last update; Mice,Plumbers,Animatronics and Airbenders. We also have the socials; Facebook & G+. 
 
Lrrr is offline. Lrrr 27.01.2011#9

I guess having a sequence of numbers also protects kids from rude/obscene names. And at east it is not a per game basis now

 
WP-Final is offline. WP-Final 27.01.2011#10

How the hell is that different to user names? Having a user name doesn't automatically add people to your friends list giving them full access. They'd still need to add you and have you accept.

Has Reggie gone mad or am I completely reading his excuse wrong?? Smilie

And I can't see them being worried about rude user names. In Mario Kart Wii, you can go online with your own name and there's nothing stopping everyone from seeing my in game user name. They'd stop you from seeing unique names if they were so hung up on them.

Plus parental controls could allow parents to set their kids 3DS to only show the user names of friends when playing online.

So simple yet so lost.

( Edited 27.01.2011 17:53 by Ifrit XXII )

 
crackedthesky is offline. crackedthesky 27.01.2011#11

The problem isn't in having friend codes, it's the restricting that went beyond that. For example, in The Conduit, you can play with others online, but you aren't allowed to talk to them or add them to your friends list. That goes a step beyond protecting you from people you don't want and right into NOT allowing people you DO want. They've gone around this a bit recently, with Black Ops being a great example. Having one friend code is a great idea, if we're actually allowed to add people on the fly instead of finding them in the real world, first.

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PMD is offline. PMD 27.01.2011#12

I think that even Reggie doesn't quite get why we use friend codes instead of usernames and wasn't really talking about that anyway. What Nintendo doesn't want is a bunch of random, online strangers being added to kids' friends-lists when they play a game online. They probably just want to play it safe so they don't get a bad reputation (like Xbox Live has).

 
Darkflame is offline. Darkflame 28.01.2011#13

The friendcodes are a scape-goat for the other problems.

We have phone numbers, IP numbers and we used to have ICQ numbers etc.
Numbers themselves are fine and dandy for a unique id (note; letting you have different nicknames per game), the problems are elsewhere.


( Edited 28.01.2011 00:21 by Darkflame )

http://www.fanficmaker.com <-- Tells some truly terrible tales.
Last update; Mice,Plumbers,Animatronics and Airbenders. We also have the socials; Facebook & G+. 
 

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