Mario Kart 7 is seeing Nintendo bring about some radical changes to how they approach online. In Mario Kart 7 every player now has the ability to name and create a community page, every one of these pages has a name and a community code, the latter will come in the following format: XX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX. The bottom screen, in the image to the right, also has a 'search by' field just above your favourites, suggesting you can search by community names also.

In Mario Kart 7 when one player adds another player, whatever name that friend has at that time, becomes their display name in Mario Kart 7. This will likely be the case with other games down the line that use Nintendo's new "communities system". Communities are online groups formed around customizable play styles, in Mario Kart 7 this provides players with options to determine which karts, power-ups and tracks will appear in their community's online matches.

A single player can invite a group of up to eight players, individually one-by-one, or collectively using the "group invite" feature. The extent of this invite feature - only people online, only people playing Mario Kart, is uncertain at this point in time, but I think it's safe to say players will have the option to contacting those offline, by way of the new messaging system in place. The group invitations can be set to either private or public, with specific game settings/rules and tracking options available to the creator of the community page. Every community page will also have it's own leader-board.

You can install a Mario Kart Channel app on the 3DS to check if your friends are playing, from the channel you join games instantly when carts are insterted. The Mario Kart Channel will display the top 100 most active communities.

Mario Kart 7 players have the option to trade their Community information, via StreetPass initiated "Player Cards". Player Cards contain the number of races a player has participated in, their win and loss record, coins collected, ghost data and Mii racers, community information and more (the latter suggests competitions last seen in Mario Kart Wii).

Players will have the option to keep all this information private via privacy settings. Once data is exchanged, players can later race with the people they've encountered via Street Pass. When a 3DS is in sleep mode and connected to Wi-Fi, SpotPass will push new Communities and Ghost Data. Up to twenty new ghosts races will be sent this way each day.

Sounds awesome. See you at the start line!

@Contro said:

In Mario Kart 7 both players exchange friend codes

And you had me going for a second there, too. I love a lot of these ideas but why do they have to keep shooting themselves in the foot? Anything they try is never going to be rid of the friend code stigma, regardless of how easy the rest of it is. And a fucking 14 digit code on top of that...

Just a fact of life, I guess.

@Mirado said:

@Contro said:

In Mario Kart 7 both players exchange friend codes

And you had me going for a second there, too. I love a lot of these ideas but why do they have to keep shooting themselves in the foot? Anything they try is never going to be rid of the friend code stigma, regardless of how easy the rest of it is. And a fucking 14 digit code on top of that...

Just a fact of life, I guess.

Yea, but It's a not much of an issue when you can add people already on your friends list and those you've met via StreetPass, if they accept your invite.

I've edited the OP to make it clearer.

@Contro: It just seems like an unnecessary step. Why can't people just be added via their usernames? Why go this extra step?

This should have been a standard feature for the 3DS, you know, like every other game platform does?

Having good connectivity in one game is hardly impressive, it just helps highlight how badly Nintendo screwed up with the 3DS.

@Mirado said:

@Contro: It just seems like an unnecessary step. Why can't people just be added via their usernames? Why go this extra step?

Nintendo rightly or wrongly impose these restrictions with young children in mind, It's in line with their long established company ethics. If it wasn't, they could have done this with Mario Kart QR codes. Thankfully, you can still add your present friends and StreetPass hits very easily.

This Communities feature will likely be rolled out with other Nintendo software on 3DS, like the next Animal Crossing.

I can't help wonder but why they keep the codes.
 
Wii had them, yet Monster Hunter Tri didn't.
Meet up in a lobby and go!

@Contro: It provides no more defense then a username. Never has. But I don't think you're actually defending it, so whatever.

This isn't new news, so I'm not sure why I'm really debating its merits. It's just a shame that Nintendo still handicaps it's online offerings and makes a standard feature a big event.

@Mirado said:

@Contro: It provides no more defense then a username. Never has. But I don't think you're actually defending it, so whatever.

This isn't new news, so I'm not sure why I'm really debating its merits. It's just a shame that Nintendo still handicaps it's online offerings and makes a standard feature a big event.

What standard feature are you referring to exactly?. The ability for Nintendo 3DS users to in effect create their own private servers and dictate their own rules, is certainly a big event.

Community track editor! It's the future of mario kart

@Dr_Rofl said:

Community track editor! It's the future of mario kart

Features like that could put Nintendo outta business.

@Contro said:

@Mirado said:

@Contro: It provides no more defense then a username. Never has. But I don't think you're actually defending it, so whatever.

This isn't new news, so I'm not sure why I'm really debating its merits. It's just a shame that Nintendo still handicaps it's online offerings and makes a standard feature a big event.

What standard feature are you referring to exactly?. The ability for Nintendo 3DS users to in effect create their own private servers and dictate their own rules, is certainly a big event.

Perhaps I should have said: "and makes what should be a standard feature" instead. The fact that this is a big event just illustrates how behind the curve Nintendo is.

Oh well. I guess I should be happy we get this at all, but.....I was so pumped for the 3DS, you know? Really. I made some pretty outrageous claims about how Nintendo was going to knock this fucking thing out of the park( (claims that, thankfully, were verbal only) when it first was revealed. What the fuck happened? Why isn't this standard for all games? Why the codes, still?

You're dropping the ball, Nintendo. The DS, even after it's shitty launch, became a smash hit. Why didn't you learn from that?

I'm not understanding the friendcode thing. I thought 3DS only had one friendcode and you didn't have to register each other in separate games (like Street Fighter IV)?

The communities feature is fantastic and something that will be great for online forum communities to gather together for some races.

@Marzy said:

I'm not understanding the friendcode thing. I thought 3DS only had one friendcode and you didn't have to register each other in separate games (like Street Fighter IV)?

The communities feature is fantastic and something that will be great for online forum communities to gather together for some races.

You don't, you only add FC's for people not on your FC list. The point is that when you add someone onto your friends roster in- game, the username they have at that point in time will remain theirs, even if they decide to change it later on.

As you know, 3DS users can change their usernames at any time they please. There would be no point to adding friends when you couldn't recognise them as friends, if they choose to change their profile names.

Ah, I see. Thanks for explaining. :)

@Marzy said:

Ah, I see. Thanks for explaining. :)

Not your fault, I shouldn't have mentioned friend codes, using the word "add" would have sufficed. Players are going to add people already present on their friends lists, first and foremost.

i'm very tired right now so I couldn't fully comprehend what I read when I skimmed through but does it have matchmaking then? 
 
Because none of my friends have a 3DS.

Just like the Wii, sadly the 3DS sits as a single-player device for me because Nintendo is trying to "innovate" the online experience in the wrong direction for me. They need to nab a solid foothold that Microsoft and Sony have been pushing in order to really start a robust online community that is outside the small country of Japan. I can see things like this working swell over there in the smushed community they have, but the problem that Nintendo has been facing is that America, Europe, and etc are all too large for such a passer-by basis to work.

Plus Nintendo is obsessed with channels and my OCD of organization and efficiency really makes me hate them right now lol.

@amomjc said:

Just like the Wii, sadly the 3DS sits as a single-player device for me because Nintendo is trying to "innovate" the online experience in the wrong direction for me. They need to nab a solid foothold that Microsoft and Sony have been pushing in order to really start a robust online community that is outside the small country of Japan. I can see things like this working swell over there in the smushed community they have, but the problem that Nintendo has been facing is that America, Europe, and etc are all too large for such a passer-by basis to work.

Plus Nintendo is obsessed with channels and my OCD of organization and efficiency really makes me hate them right now lol.

I'm not happy about not being able to position stuff also, although I do expect that to change with the next firmware update.

What Nintendo is intending to do with this could work in any country, cultural differences are not the issue here. Nintendo don't design games in an insular fashion only thinking about Japanese gamers first, they create games looking at the global market, and have been very successful in doing so.

As I say earlier in this thread, Nintendo wont roll out features that conflict with their company line. This is exactly why with WiiU you see them giving developers the opportunity to devise their own line systems for their upcoming console. That way Nintendo can keep their hands clean, so to speak.

Here's Iwata-san and Konno-san discussing the online features.

Hideki Konno On Mario Kart WiiU IGN

"I can't get into the specifics, but I do want to create a new and enjoyable Mario Kart that uses the unique functions of the Wii U. Anything beyond that I have to keep secret. Please bare with me for now!"-

Mr. Konno also cleared up some long-standing confusion about just what Retro did with Mario Kart 7.

"Knowing that Retro Studios had a strong track record and a long history of creating quality products with Nintendo, I asked them to collaborate with us on aspects like course and character design. The course designers and artists at both EAD and Retro Studios worked closely together to create what I consider to be very prolific and high-quality work."