1 Millionth Unique User Logs on to Nintendo Wifi

MrJack5304 writes "According to Nintendo's official Press Release, the Nintendo Wifi service has logged it's 1 millionth user. In 5 short months Nintendo has reached 1 million users, and had 27 million total connections." From the release: "Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection lets Nintendo DS owners log on cost-free to compete or interact in a variety of games, from racing in Mario Kart DS to community-building in Animal Crossing: Wild World. The 1 millionth user was a player in Japan, who logged on to play Animal Crossing: Wild World." The release goes on to mention that Tetris DS and Metroid Hunters will also utilize the service.

Comments

Future of online console gaming

[the computer guy nex]

Which business model will win?

Sony/MS use a subscription model. Nintendo is using free access.

The free access is an extra bonus when buying a console, so Nintendo should sell extra consoles to make up the cost of free online gaming. Sony/MS would rather sell fewer consoles but use a subscription model.

One way or another its nice to have choices.

Re:Future of online console gaming

[MaestroSartori]

The thing is, I think that game makers can provide free online services independantly of Sony and MS if they so desire - although Xbox Live and the mooted PS3 "Hub" service provide stuff that I don't think the DS does (centralised stats and buddy lists and whatnot), so the requirements in terms of infrastructure are fairly different.

I think there's room for both approaches, for different types of games.

1 millionth

[Loconut1389]

Don't you mean 1 millionth pedophile? [/sarcasm]

Re:1 millionth

[Anonymous Coward]

Have you noticed that every single thing which comes along which might be considered fun by both teenage girls and adult men becomes a new tool for pedophiles in the eyes of the media?

News Flash: Real pedophiles don't go after teen girls. They go after young children of both genders. When a 26 year-old male finds himself attracted to a 17 year-old girl, that's not a pedophile. That's an ordinary heterosexual male, whose biological impulse runs afoul of our provincial age-of-consent laws. If he acts on that impulse, he's a bit of a dweeb, but hardly what you would call a "predator."

Apparently, it's okay for corporate America to use 15-year old models to sell issues of Maxim, but completely taboo for anybody to admit out loud that youth is attractive.

Raise your daughters to understand that adult losers who hit on teens are both too old for them, and kind of pathetic. That's the only defense that's going to matter when she's chatting in the SIMS Online (or whatever) and some dork who can't find a date his own age is trying to make time with her.

Also, the time to start watching out for sexual predators is not when your little angel starts dating, wearing make-up, and bugging you to let her get her nose pierced. It's when she's 5. Oh, and statistically, that predator you need to watch out for is probably a family member, teacher, or member of the clergy. Odds are, there are no strangers lurking in your bushes.

Re:1 millionth

[Anonymous Coward]

I read that article, but I think you should have linked the word 'pedophile' to it. Without a link, people who didn't read it would think you're just pulling off some pointless sarcastic joke, thus flamebait.

A linked word or two can completely change the way a post is modded. Keep that in mind, and happy posting.

Re:1 millionth

[Hogwash McFly]

If I may repeat an oft-heard phrase, you must be new here.

You see, on Slashdot, criticising Nintendo in any way, shape or form is like having a dig at Linux. It's just not the done thing, old chap. Humorous or sarcastic intent is irrelevant as far as the gamers on here are concerned. There are legions of mod-point owners who are convinced that Nintendo is pure and holy, each unaware of the irony involved with saying 'Nintendo always innovates' while in the same sentence saying that they are looking forward to the next Mario platformer, the next Mario Kart, the next Zelda, the next Metroid, the next Super Smash Brothers, etc.

That's the power of childhood nostalgia, I suppose. Hear that 1-UP chime or see that golden invincibility star and all of a sudden you're weak at the knees...

Re:1 millionth

[dogbowl]

If you can't see the difference between the Mario platformers or the Zelda titles and if you can't recognize the accolades that each has received, thats not the fault of the mods

Re:1 millionth

[BTWR]

the irony involved with saying 'Nintendo always innovates' while in the same sentence saying that they are looking forward to the next Mario platformer, the next Mario Kart, the next Zelda, the next Metroid, the next Super Smash Brothers, etc.

(Nearly) each Nintendo sequel is innovative (Metroid Prime, Mario 64, etc), even though it shares a name with it's predecessor. That's like saying The Godfather, Part II is not one of the most innovative movies ever, and basing that argument soley on the fact that it shares the title "Godfather" with the first movie released 2 years earlier...

Re:1 millionth

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

"That's the power of childhood nostalgia, I suppose."

It's the power of playing-a-bunch-of-RECENT-games nostalgia.

Re:1 millionth

[Hogwash McFly]

I didn't say that they were bad games or that there was no difference between them. I'm not criticising Nintendo here, just the rabid zealots that seem to appear on Slashdot in far higher numbers than Playstation and Xbox fanboys. It's more than obvious than Slashdot has a large pro-Nintendo slant, I was just pointing that out in a light-hearted, tongue-in-cheek manner. I've got no agenda.

Infact, out of the 'next gen' consoles, the Revolution, and thus Nintendo, seems almost certain at getting my money. I like Nintendo. I know they can deliver high quality games. I just believe that they are praised without question too often on here, and that every decision made by the company that may even be slightly negative or in poor business sense is always excused - doesn't matter this, big plan that, graphics have never mattered, it will still be a great game, I actually prefer the cel-shaded style (HONESTLY I DO!), they never wanted to win the console war etc.

The next Mario could be really disappointing but a lot of people would feel compelled to love it BECAUSE IT'S MARIO, as though they have some kid of duty to protect their inner-child and not tarnish the rosy memories of the frog suit and warp whistle.

While all of the consoles have their fans, there's just some niggling feeling that tells me the N-heads trust the fungus a little too much.

Or maybe I just think about things a little too much...

Re:1 millionth

[Cheapy]

It all depends on what you define as 'innovative'. To me, Mario 64 isn't innovative at all. It adds a third dimension, which was following the industry. It added new hats; which is a common practice in sequels (Adding new items). It focused on the Stars, which is a gameplay mechanic. Other than that, it's pretty much the same as the old games. Jump on heads and jump around. Not very innovative.

I liked Metroid Prime. Never played the original, so I can't comment on that.

And about Super Smash Brothers Melee: What exactly was added? New characters, new items and new levels? Oh! And prizes! Can't forget the prizes. Maybe they added network play, I do not remember. I saw nothing innovative about that game.

On the other hand, there is Pikmin. Nintendo finally tried something that didn't involve their old characters (Mario, Link/Zelda, Star Fox). And the gameplay was new to boot.

The principle reason people don't think Nintendo innovates as much as their fans claim is that they (Nintendo) keep on using the same damn characters over and over. I'm sure to some it is appealing to have the ability to play some Mario Basketball after playing Mario DDR, but that's just milking the cash cow, whether you like it or not.

Now, with that said and done, I'm sure someone will post a pre-made list of rebuttals to every single item in this post, but let them! It'll be educational.

Re:1 millionth

[Hitto]

I'm gonna go out on a limb, here, but I really wonder what the youth whose first console was the PSX will think about sony fifteen years after crash bandicoot, for example.

Now, Mario, that's staying power. Because yeah, he was a pretty cool guy to hang out with during the eighties.

Re:1 millionth

[suspected]

>>It all depends on what you define as 'innovative'. To me, Mario 64 isn't innovative at all.

If Mario64 was not innovating to you, perhaps you didn't play it until much after its release. Before Mario64, most 3D games were having a very hard time correctly incorporating the 3D aspect of the game. Some of the first few games released for the Nintendo 64 made many grave mistakes. Many of them made jumping from one area to another too difficult while others totally ignored the added dimension provided by a 3-dimentional game.

That all started to change with the release of Mario 64. They incorporated the 3-dimensional aspect so well, that people such as yourself didn't even give it a second thought. Mario 64 set the standard for 3D and other developers learned from it how to make their own 3-dementional game.

Mario 64 might not seem like anything special now, but that's only because it raised the bar. You'll have a very hard time finding a true 3D game that was well done and released before Mario 64.

And his prize?

[gEvil (beta)]

And for being the 1 millionth user he gets?!? An anonymous mention in a press release... :-(

Re:And his prize?

[apoc06]

i thought the same thing. i mean for all the money that nintendo makes, youd think he could at least get a year of WiFi service free... oh wait!

Re:And his prize?

[gEvil (beta)]

Exactly! A free lifetime supply of DS WiFi service would really make this kid's day...

Re:And his prize?

[rev063]

It's unlikely he can be identified: there's no formal registration process with Nintendo's WiFi service like there is with Xbox Live, for example. I guess the system can identify both the DS and the game card uniquely, but unless this guy registered his purchases with Nintendo, there's no way they can know who he is.

Re:And his prize?

[KDR_11k]

I'd be scared if Nintendo could provide any more accurate data. After all, we like our privacy 'round here.

PSP doesn't use subscription....

[fistfullast33l]

Sony/MS use a subscription model. Nintendo is using free access. This article is about the DS I thought...its direct competitor would be the PSP which doesn't require a subscription to anything to play online games unless the game developer/publisher require it. But I don't know of any games like this.

Interesting

[voice_of_all_reason]

So that's why all nintendo products have a hole in the back of the box for the cashier to scan each unique ID at purchase.

//Did you guys also have to go in the back room and give a dna sample for your DS? 'Cause that wasn't really too pleasant at all...

Re:Interesting

[tod_miller]

'Cause that wasn't really too pleasant at all...

That would depend on the nature of the sample and how is was obtained and how helpful the nurse was. fap fap fap.

Re:Interesting

[littleghoti]

Or maybe they've just been keeping records of the MAC addresses connected to their servers?

Re:Interesting

[Taboam]

Its not the amount of purchaces, its the amount of people who have registered thier online codes at a WAP.

Re:Interesting

[idonthack]

No, that's so the cashier system can add the correct amount to your bill. You might be surprised to learn that most other products use bar codes, too.

Re:Interesting

[LordKronos]

No, the reason why they scan that extra barcode is so that they can track the specific piece of hardware they sell to you. This is more to combat different types of fraud or (for lack of a better term) creative deal hunting.

Example 1: You buy a product and 6 months later it breaks. You buy a new one and return the old one in the new box with the new receipt. If they've scanned the hardware ID and tied it to the receipt, they can catch this.

Example 2: You buy a product, and sometime after your price match period ends (but before your return period ends) you find the product on sale for a better price. So you rebuy the product and return the new unopened item on the old receipt. (of course, nothing stops you from putting the old item into the new box, but some people don't think of that stuff).

Re:Interesting

[CastrTroy]

I thought the price match time span always lasted as long as the product return time span. Because you could just return it and buy it somewhere else.

Re:Interesting

[LordKronos]

Target price matches for 1 week, but accepts returns for 90 days.

Re:Interesting

[tlhIngan]

Actually, there's another reason all consoles have to have the serial number scanned - it's the warranty registration! That serial number goes to Nintendo (or Microsoft, or Sony), and it activates the warranty from the time it was scanned. If you later need service, all you have to do is call them up, give them the serial number, and they'll verify immediately if it needs service.

If they don't have the registration on file, then they'll ask for you to include your sales receipt to qualify warranty (and they'll register the remaining period in their systems).

My DS had a dud pixel, and the store I got it from didn't register it, so Nintendo took the original receipt, then created an extension on the replacement unit to the full year from the date I brought it in (not that it extended it much - just a week and a half).

Nintendo WiFi is nice, but...

[dividedsky319]

The WiFi service for the DS is nice, however... it could be implemented a little better.

My problem with Mario Kart DS is that there's no ranking/ladder type system... so a first time player can be pitted against someone with 1000 wins and 3 losses. Not to mention the fact that I've had some of these people quit right before they were about to lose. (Which, I think, makes it so a loss isn't added to their record... which if true, is something else that should be changed)

And my problem with Animal Crossing is that there's no "community" place where you can randomly visit someone else's town... you have to manually put someone else's code in.

The hardware is in place, I just wish they'd develop the online community a little better.

Re:Nintendo WiFi is nice, but...

[Anonymous Coward]

I think it was on purpose to avoid this kind of crap.

Doubtful they'd expand it.

Re:Nintendo WiFi is nice, but...

[Lave]

>My problem with Mario Kart DS is that there's no ranking/ladder type system... so a first time player can be pitted against someone with 1000 wins and 3 losses.

Except for the "Rivals" match which searches for people with similar win/loss records.

Re:Nintendo WiFi is nice, but...

[xnderxnder]

And my problem with Animal Crossing is that there's no "community" place where you can randomly visit someone else's town... you have to manually put someone else's code in.

That would seem to be design intent. If there were such a space, then Nintendo would have to police it. Communities do exist (eg. see gamefaqs message boards). Having random vistors would be very annoying - there are lots or idiots in the world who will trash your town.

A matching service would be nice - perhaps we'll see it in a sequel. ;>

Re:Nintendo WiFi is nice, but...

[voice_of_all_reason]

so a first time player can be pitted against someone with 1000 wins and 3 losses

Stick and move, Little Mac! Stick and move!

Re:Nintendo WiFi is nice, but...

[Anonymous Coward]

Why have Animal Crossing communities on the DS? That makes no sense. The web (on a PC) is better suited to that sort of thing, and that is why there are AC community web sites all over the internet.

Re:Nintendo WiFi is nice, but...

[LordKronos]

there are lots or idiots in the world who will trash your town.

Exactly. I've had an idoit come in and then start chopping down trees and picking up tiles as soon as they leave my sight. A friend of mine had a semi-valuable item stolen because he set it down outside his house when he was offline, then forgot about it when he opened up his town.

Even beside malicous intent, there is unintentional carelessness. In Animal Crossing, you can cross polinate flowers and come up with special hybrids. They can be very time consuming to grow, but all you need it one person to carelessly run through them a couple times and they are gone.

Re:Nintendo WiFi is nice, but...

[CastrTroy]

Maybe they should make it so that you can't do permanent damage. No cutting trees, No taking items, that sort of thing. Maybe have an option so that people can come to your town, but they can't affect anything.

Re:Nintendo WiFi is nice, but...

[LordKronos]

There are other things people can do too. For instance, if you sit on a chair and they stand in front of the chair, you are blocked in. While you are sitting down, you can save (the button perform other functions). Your choice is either to wait it out or to just power off and lose any progress since your last save. Obviously the solution there is to make sure you have a way to save when you sit down, but I'm not sure the designers thought of that potential problem.

The other problem is exploiting bugs in the game. Ideally, you would want the game to be designed perfect and bulletproof, but stuff happens, and something always slips by. There was one bug in the game that was exploited early on where a hacker managed to change your town gate into a museum. Once the town gate was gone, so was your ability to go online. This wasn't done through normal game mechanisms, and my understanding was that it wasn't even done through an Action Replay or anything...someone reverse engineered and emulated the protocols in the game, connected to someone's town, and sent a malicous command to change the gate. I can't imagine that was done through an intentionally designed channel. It was almost certainly a bug in the game.

It just seems to me that in a game like animal crossing, it doesn't seem very wise to let just anybody into your town, and having an official community seems problematic (vulgarity/stalker/pedophile aspects aside)

Re:Nintendo WiFi is nice, but...

[Meagermanx]

I'd like to see a community-based game where you interact with a group of 25-50 people in a neighborhood/town. Like logging onto a small MUD and getting to know the community, but more like Harvest Moon or something.

Re:Nintendo WiFi is nice, but...

[Castar]

And my problem with Animal Crossing is that there's no "community" place where you can randomly visit someone else's town... you have to manually put someone else's code in.

This is entirely intentional, from what I understand. Nintendo feels that Animal Crossing is a game that you should play with people you know somewhat well in real life, since you're letting them into your town where they can perform potentially damaging actions. It also fits more with their idea of the game - a neighborly, small-village-community sort of thing, not a vast faceless crowd.

Whether that was a good decision or not is up for debate, but it wasn't due to lack of planning as you're implying.

Was referring to PS3, not PSP

[the computer guy nex]

DS has pretty much destroyed the PSP.

Re:Was referring to PS3, not PSP

[spooje]

In the US maybe. In Japan the DS is still more popular and has a much wider varity of games than the PSP.

Re:Was referring to PS3, not PSP

[Anonymous Coward]

It's the same in the US. That's why he said that the DS had destroyed the PSP.

Re:Was referring to PS3, not PSP

[XenoRyet]

Seems you're a little trigger happy there spooje, GP said the same thing. You both agree that DS > PSP, which is pretty universaly true.

No Prize?

[DumbWhiteGuy777]

They should atleast pay off the mortgage on his house...

didn't RTFA but..

[Anonymous Coward]

My only complaint about NintendoWiFi in Mario Kart DS has been the creation of, shall we say, artisically impressive and personally offensive avatars. Yes, they're both, because, wow, you managed to draw that pixel by pixel? Kudos. I believe VGCats touched on this, though I haven't come across anything that blatant yet. Flaming poo and an ass are what I've seen so far on the extreme end of things.

Nis

Re:didn't RTFA but..

[Anonymous Coward]

If you have a nice picture of a burning ass you could use photoshop (or even mspaint) to resize it the avatars size. then all you have to do is reduce the colorspace. And finally copy it pixel by pixel.(I wrote something for this for another purpose once)

HIs prize should be...

[Strell]

He should be visited by Reggie AND Miyamoto. The pure level of awesomeness radiating during such a meeting would cause the Earth to explode, leaving naught but those two titans to craft us worlds anew...

I believe Nintendo has already thought of such conclusions, hence no prize.

That's great

[steveo777]

... considering as far as I know, Mario Kart and Animal Crossing are the only two games to utilize this service stateside. I may be very wrong, however. I just hadn't been keeping up on DS stuff.

Re:That's great

[generic-man]

There's also a Tony Hawk game, the upcoming Metroid FPS (remember that one that shipped as a demo with every DS?) and Tetris DS. Goooooo Tetris!

Re:That's great

[Zangief]

I believe this is worldwide, as the article mentions that the 1.000.000th user was in japan.

Also, Tony Hawk DS uses the wifi online thingy.

Re:That's great

[steveo777]

Don't want to flame you, but just look a little closer at my original post.

"considering as far as I know, Mario Kart and Animal Crossing are the only two games to utilize this service stateside"

I suppose I could have said in the US, but since, general, we get games after Japan and the rest of the world next, it's pretty synonomous.
But, no, I didn't know about Tony Hawk.

Re:That's great

[damsa]

US got Mariokart and wifi before Japan as they wanted it out before the holiday shopping season started.

Re:That's great

[KDR_11k]

I think Japan only has one WiFi game more than the US at the moment, the Bleach DS game.

Re:That's great

[steveo777]

Wow, didn't even know that. I really should keep up a bit more. Once we get the DS light, hopefully I will.

Ammendation

[etherealmuse]

The 1 millionth unique user occured after only 3 months and 3 weeks, not 5 months.

Explain to me...

[PFI_Optix]

how is this special?

I mean, it's been more than ten years since free online gaming was viable...Quake, for example.

XBOX offers a centralized system for all games to use, and charges a subscription fee...like Steam on steroids. DS appears to use a more game-specific system, more like Battle.net or Half-Life's pre-Steam system. Both are just a result of gradual improvements upon systems used in gaming for years.

(note: I say "appears" because I do not own and do not intend to buy a DS...I am working off what information is readily available on nintendowifi.com)

Re:Explain to me...

[BinaryOpty]

This is special because Nintendo's online service reached 1 million in 4 months. Microsoft's took 2 years.

Re:Explain to me...

[richman555]

It is also special because the DS is handheld, not a console. This will certainly give the revolution a boost when it is available.

Re:Explain to me...

[PFI_Optix]

Nintendo has less competition and a much more loyal user base than Microsoft, so I don't see why anyone should find this surprising.

PDAs have had wireless for years; a comparably-sized handheld console with it was inevitable. The question is, how good is the service? I talked to a friend who has one this afternoon, he said he hasn't really gotten anything out of the wireless service because it's too hard to find and play against friends.

Re:Explain to me...

[earthbound kid]

Nintendo has less competition... than Microsoft

Given that Nintendo is directly competing with Microsoft in the console arena, and in the handheld arena the PSP put up some strong competition, all I can assume is that you're trolling.

Re:Explain to me...

[Anonymous Coward]

also, it managed to do it with just three games currently supporting wireless play...

nintendo could get more slashdotters

[honold]

if they would support wpa on the ^$@#&*$^@# thing

>:(

Re:nintendo could get more slashdotters

[LordKronos]

Or even more important than WPA, more complete support for wireless routers. My router is on the list as one not officially supported. I found that if I reboot the router every time just before I attempt to connect, I can get on no problem. However, if I don't reboot it I only get a connection part of the time. There are quite a few routers that have this problem, or that don't work at all under any circumstances. That is really my only disappointment with the DS.

Re:nintendo could get more slashdotters

[Anonymous Coward]

You don't need WPA. First of all, keep any sensitive data out of access from a WAN. If it's accessible from a WAN, anyone determined enough can get to it, WPA or not. That said, if you set up MAC filtering, limit the number of simultaneous connections, and use WEP (as weak as it is), you'll keep 99.9% of the people out there off your WAN and still get to race people in Mario Kart.

Re:nintendo could get more slashdotters

[rev063]

Something I discovered recently is that Apple's Airport Express solves this problem for me. I have an Airport Express I use for business trips -- I can plug it into the fixed ethernet in the room and then have wifi in my hotel room. Anyway, I just realised I can use this when I'm travelling to play Mario Kart DS online, just by connecting to the access point created by the Airport Express. I have a wireless router that I had to manually downgrade to 2Mbps transfer rate before I could take my DS online, which was a major pain. So now, when I'm at home, I just connect the Airport Express to one of the output from my crappy router using a short ethernet cable, and with my DS connect to the Airport Express instead of the DLink router. Works perfectly. The Airport Express is kinda pricey though, but if you have or want one it might be a good solution.

The key word is "unique"

[Headcase88]

Wow, 1 millionth unique user...

Those guys who make press releases for Firefox could learn a thing or two from Nintendo ;)

Re:The key word is "unique"

[1stdoc]

What I would like to know is how they are counting uniques. There are three wireless DS games out there at the moment (AC, MK and Tony Hawk) all generate unique friend codes so are we just talking about a million unique friend codes or can they (and are they) counting each individual DS that logs on? Potentially if they are only counting unique friend codes the actual number of people to log on may be as low as 300k (assuming I 1:1:1 split among the three games, I'd say 5:4:1 is more likely, and I imagine you can guess what order those are in). 300k is still impressive no doubt, but its not 1 million.

Re:The key word is "unique"

[Taboam]

To get the your code you have to log on at a WAP and the code is locked to your DS therefore 1 million unique friend codes is 1 million unique users log on

Other statistics?

[winmine]

They may have reached 1 million individual players faster than Xbox live did, but how many of those still play? What's the daily peak users?

I'd guess that a large portion of that 1M were people who bought Mario Kart, tried Nintendo WiFi for a day and weren't compelled to return.

Re:Other statistics?

[Mullinator]

And you are trying to tell me that Xbox Live can't/hasn't suffered from the same problem? Of course many of them are like this. It is also safe to assume that the same situation existed for many Xbox Live users as well.

Re:Other statistics?

[Dance_Dance_Karnov]

on this site http://www.nintendowifi.com/gaminghub/Gamehub.jsp you can see the stats of people connecting day to day, currently the 24-hour average seems to be about 200,000 players a day.

Re:Other statistics?

[Aidski]

From their point of view, does it matter if people keep on coming back to play one game on WiFi? There's no monthly cost anyway, they don't profit from continued use like Microsoft does.

Re:Other statistics?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why does the number of "Player Logins" in the last 24 hours number in the hundreds for Animal Crossing? If 200K people are connecting every day, this number should be in the thousands.

Panties in a twist?

[Anonymous Coward]

What's eating the mods today?

Moderation -1
    20% Troll
    20% Flamebait
    20% Funny

Earlier was 50% Underrated, 50% Flamebait

I don't see any flamewars occurring. Most intelligent folks noticed the [/sarcasm] and actually read slashdot more than once a year and knew what post was being referred to.

Subtle humor apparently doesn't work on slashdot gamers.

Commander Keen

[Anonymous Coward]

When Mario 64 came out, Tom Hall basically said "Shit, that's the game I wanted to make." He said that because Mario 64 essentially found the right answer to 3-D interaction. It's so much the correct answer, it's hard to imagine any other way to do it now. Those conventions look like they're "just adding 3-D", when of course they're not.

And then they followed it up with Ocarina of Time, the lock-on system and the auto-jump which changed everything again. There were probably a few titles which had lock-on before that, but the way they married true 3-D movement with precision and dynamic action was almost flawless. At the time it got more than a few WTFs, but now most games that aren't done the Mario way are done the Zelda way.

Once you consider Goldeneye, it's pretty clear that the N64 defined the transition from 2-D to 3-D, even if it wasn't the leading console of its generation.