Nintendo’s Completely FUBAR

I guess you could say that I was more than just a little annoyed when I heard that Nintendo was going to be using friend codes with Wii. I simply could not understand how such a large corporation would not be able to see the absurdity of the tedious system they’d just unleashed upon the world with the DS’ terrible friend code system. So when the guys at High Voltage Software mentioned that they were forced into only allowing voice chat with friends and friends of friends I can’t say that I was surprised, but I was definitely angry.

I can’t imagine what it’s going to be like playing a shooter without being able to fully communicate with teammates in-game. Just think about what it would have been like if a game like Left 4 Dead had been released on the system. It would have been just an annoyance to play online. Previously I’d always wondered why we were getting so few FPS games on Wii and now I think I know why. Every FPS is almost required to have an online multiplayer mode (it’s an unwritten rule or something) and it wouldn’t surprise me if many developers and publishers simply don’t want to deal with Nintendo’s ridiculous iron-fist rules regarding online play. So while I can certainly respect everything that High Voltage has done with The Conduit, I’d be very surprised to see them working on Wii again if they were given the opportunity to develop for systems that didn’t have completely broken online experiences (ie. PS3 or 360).

But wait, I hear you saying that at least this is better than a complete lack of voice chat in games like Medal of Honor: Heroes 2 and Call of Duty: World at War? Well yes, it is better but it’s like choosing between having someone piss on your face, or having two people piss on your face. Sure, there only being one person is better, but at the end of the day you’re still being fucking pissed on! And don’t get me started on the piece of shit that is WiiSpeak. Not only can I not have a headset, but the voices of all my friends are coming through my TV simply adding to the cacophony of noise coming from the speakers.

So that’s really it, I’d been hanging on for some time now but I now no longer care about Nintendo. I no longer care about Wii, or whatever they’ve got planned for next gen and I won’t start caring until I hear that we’ve got an online system and voice chat solution that is up to par with the others on the market. So I guess this is a farewell to Nintendo, a company that took my money and the money of others that supported them during the GameCube and N64 days when things weren’t really looking so great, a company that then took that money to create a new console that went completely against everything all those supporters had been expecting. So goodbye Nintendo, I hope you one day snap out of it some time soon and I hope that all those still convinced that Wii is some form of revolution for gaming come to realize that for every step forward the system has made it has taken about 50 steps back. Thank God I now have a PC to do some real gaming on.