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DS Has 2 Million Wi-Fi Users Play 70 Million Times
Wowzer writes "Nintendo's wireless gaming service has reached two million unique DS players online. Together they logged more than 70 million individual game sessions in just more than nine months of operation. From the article: 'To put that number in perspective, the population of Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection users now surpasses the population of 15 different U.S. states, including Montana, Nebraska and New Mexico.' The more you know, right? Also mentioned are the DS online games released so far: Mario Kart DS, Tony Hawk's American Sk8land, Animal Crossing: Wild World, Tetris DS, LostMagic, Metroid Prime: Hunters, Tenchu: Dark Secret, and today Star Fox Command."
Unfortunately, I don't really see Nintendo going to this sort of system. As much as they try to shy away from the label of "kiddy", they want to make the WiFi connection kid friendly.
There was a story a few weeks back about a patent Nintendo filed dealing with converting speech to text... I could actually see this being worked into future Nintendo software, because that way the "conversation" could be monitored and censored. Swearing would be converted to text, then ****'d out so kids couldn't be exposed to "vulgar" language.
I agree, it's annoying that Nintendo feels this way... I hate using "friend codes" as much as the next guy... but there's a reason behind it.
One benefit of using a real computer opponent is that they won't quit if they start losing. MarioKart has soured me on the whole experience really. I have had my ass handed to me more often then not, fair enough. But those few times that I do wind up winning almost invariably everyone quits before I finish thus I don't get credit. I once even played against someone whose user logo said something along the lines of "anti disconnect" or something like that. Guess what he did when he started to lose? If they can't prevent people from acting like asses without reprecusions then I see no reason to continue to play internet games on my DS.
I really dig the free WiFi play, but I can only use it sitting in one corner of my house to get on my neighbor's "default" network. One of these days I guess I will hang an old AP off of my router and lock it to my DS's MAC and nothing else, but I don't understand Nintendo's complete lack of WPA support.
I wouldn't say that Nintendo is trying to be "Kid Friendly" as much as they are trying to protect all of their users from the negative side of online play. Anyone who has run through the Barrens in WoW or played Online (with voice chat) on XBox Live knows how vulgar and rude insecure 13 year olds (and insecure 13 year olds at heart) are; an Asian Woman may go online only to be offended by the jerks she plays her first game against, meaning that she would not continue to play games online.