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    Nintendo Network is the online service for Wii U and 3DS.

    The Reason Nintendo Said Goodbye to Friend Codes

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    BlueWolverine

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    #51  Edited By BlueWolverine

    This is what happens when you have no idea what you are doing, Nintendo.

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    hagridore

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    #52  Edited By hagridore

    Weird that Nintendo outsourced the TV app but continues to develop the networking in-house. They've no skill here, and if they thought they could get away with it - the Wii U would be an offline system.

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    FourWude

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    #53  Edited By FourWude

    So they did away with the 128 bit SSL encrypted, anti-pedo Friend Codes. The children are now out in the open...

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    squrler

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    #54  Edited By squrler

    Wow, how awkward was that conversation between Owata and Reggie. Cringefest.

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    Wheatley117

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    #55  Edited By Wheatley117

    Good to hear, altough i am not getting a WiiU. Hopefully they'll remove them from the 3DS as well.

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    honkyjesus

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    #56  Edited By honkyjesus

    Some of things Nintendo does reminds me of some braindead tourist in a big city. I'm not sure how else to put it, and I wish they would start speaking something other than Engrish.

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    envane

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    #57  Edited By envane

    lol plaza

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    GERALTITUDE

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    #58  Edited By GERALTITUDE

    Ugh. There are just so many stupidly named things in this article, it's actually hard to read.

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    sins_of_mosin

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    #59  Edited By sins_of_mosin

    Nintendo just sucks at about everything so why the surprise that they used a generic number based system and had a horrible online service?

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    NeoCalypso

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    #60  Edited By NeoCalypso

    Nintendo demonstrates time and time again that they just don't understand why people play online. Hopefully they'll actually get a clue this time around.

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    OMGmyFACE

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    #61  Edited By OMGmyFACE

    Online chat is a problem because someone might curse. Friend codes are a problem because those people might not be your friends. It's 2012 and they've only just now realized that M-rated games and HD graphics don't ruin childhoods. The only reason this company is still around is because of people who remember the SNES fondly and still buy Zelda and Mario titles because "what if they become great again?" It's sad watching your favorite childhood superhero fall to a terminal illness.

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    Icecreamjones

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    #62  Edited By Icecreamjones

    Thank you for finally surpassing ICQ technology level with your online service, Nintendo.

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    godzilla_sushi

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    #63  Edited By godzilla_sushi

    I bet one of the things its users did with friend codes was nothing.

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    bricewgilbert

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    #64  Edited By bricewgilbert

    Correct me if i'm wrong but they have not said yet if you have an actual ID/gamertag thing that people can enter to add you to a friends list. Could be weird translations or something, but I honestly wouldn't be surprised if they required you to play with the person first. Kind of like how you can do that with the 3DS if you don't want to put in a friend code.

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    deactivated-57d4cf64585b7

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    Nice article. I love it when articles get straight to the point and cut the crap. I hope that this online system actually works because I had many friends with Wii's and I had one as well and we never once exchanged friend codes. Just a huge hassle.

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    Timnoldzim

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    #66  Edited By Timnoldzim

    Man, Nintendo is just the king of discovering advancements 8 years after everyone else, aren't they?

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    Homelessbird

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    #67  Edited By Homelessbird

    “We came to think that it might be better for Nintendo itself to provide a service that would be more fun to use,” said Mizuki

    Good lord, is today the day for Japanese studios to admit their (incredibly obvious) mistakes? Like the former Square Enix executive who admitted today that the Square-Enix merger has destroyed every scrap of goodwill ever generated by that company - as if that wasn't obvious in, like, 1998.

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    Homelessbird

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    #68  Edited By Homelessbird

    Also, after a quick perusal, I'd just like to say that the comments for this story are the funniest thing on the site since last week's Sleepy Dawgs QL.

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    SadisticWOlf

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    #69  Edited By SadisticWOlf

    "That’s why we made it so you exchange Friend Codes with your real friends. But then some people put their Friend Codes on other networks and bulletin boards and exchanged them with strangers anyway.”

    This is quite possibly one of the stupidest sentences I have ever read. The fact that it came from someone who is influencing for a multimillion dollar corporation is shocking.

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    medacris

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    #70  Edited By medacris

    I don't mind them getting rid of friend codes, because it was a pain in the ass to remember them, but I agree that it's kind of frustrating that Nintendo has decided that online friends do not dictate real friends in their eyes. Nothing malicious was going on to my knowledge, just two people swapping Pokemon or furniture for Tom Nook. I thought that was the point of the internet, to meet people you wouldn't usually get a chance to know.

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    Shaanyboi

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    #71  Edited By Shaanyboi

    @bricewgilbert said:

    Correct me if i'm wrong but they have not said yet if you have an actual ID/gamertag thing that people can enter to add you to a friends list. Could be weird translations or something, but I honestly wouldn't be surprised if they required you to play with the person first. Kind of like how you can do that with the 3DS if you don't want to put in a friend code.

    one of the first things you do in set up is pick a 'Nintendo Network ID'. So yeah... it's pretty much just a name now.

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    RoyCampbell

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    #72  Edited By RoyCampbell

    Love the atmospheric music Nintendo implements with their systems, notably with 3DS and Wii.
     
    By the way: 
     
    "This is in my office, right now."

    "Oh. Okay."

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    deathstriker666

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    #73  Edited By deathstriker666

    @Seppli said:

    @ck1nd said:

    @jeffrud: @kermoosh: It's an actual quest here. Can't we all just get off our high-horses and stop caring about top commentors in the first place? So much bitching over spilled milk.

    No offense intended, but I believe it's meant to be spilt milk. I just had to point that out. Also - while not entirely on point - Learn 2 Spell!

    No, spilt makes no sense in that phrase. Milk is a liquid and can't be spilt. Spilled is correct

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    gesi1223

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    #75  Edited By gesi1223

    @deathstriker666 said:

    @Seppli said:

    @ck1nd said:

    @jeffrud: @kermoosh: It's an actual quest here. Can't we all just get off our high-horses and stop caring about top commentors in the first place? So much bitching over spilled milk.

    No offense intended, but I believe it's meant to be spilt milk. I just had to point that out. Also - while not entirely on point - Learn 2 Spell!

    No, spilt makes no sense in that phrase. Milk is a liquid and can't be spilt. Spilled is correct

    http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/spilt

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    Pepsiman

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    #76  Edited By Pepsiman

    As a Japanese speaker, Reggie's Japanese hurts me to my very soul. I kind of wish Iwata had told him how terrible his pronunciation was since he's the boss, but alas, that's probably too much drama for a Nintendo Direct.

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    Sunjammer

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    #77  Edited By Sunjammer

    I wish Nintendo wouldn't think so much. I get every single online strategy decision they made, but that doesn't make almost every single decision they made was a bad one. Online interactivity is about anarchy and freedom and randomness and the excitement of introducing that chaos into what is otherwise a known quanta. It is not about quantifying friendships and ensuring nobody says anything bad. People aren't that predictable, and that's the fun. Warts and all.

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    peritus

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    #78  Edited By peritus

    Good news, i like it!

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    dvorak

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    #79  Edited By dvorak

    The reason Nintendo got rid of friend codes: They were dumb as hell.

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    BlazeHedgehog

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    #81  Edited By BlazeHedgehog

    Friend codes were kind of dumb but I feel like a lot of people blow the issue out of proportion.

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    laserbolts

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    #82  Edited By laserbolts

    Welcome to 7 years ago Nintendo.

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    LiK

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    #83  Edited By LiK

    Took them long enough

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    geirr

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    #84  Edited By geirr

    It's weird how disconnected Nintendo has become to reality and their fans.

    Also the only reason they should have needed to undo the friend codes was something called user feedback - but nintendo as said are completely disconnected from their fans and have been since...............

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    deathstriker666

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    #85  Edited By deathstriker666

    @gesi1223 said:

    @deathstriker666 said:

    @Seppli said:

    @ck1nd said:

    @jeffrud: @kermoosh: It's an actual quest here. Can't we all just get off our high-horses and stop caring about top commentors in the first place? So much bitching over spilled milk.

    No offense intended, but I believe it's meant to be spilt milk. I just had to point that out. Also - while not entirely on point - Learn 2 Spell!

    No, spilt makes no sense in that phrase. Milk is a liquid and can't be spilt. Spilled is correct

    http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/spilt

    Modern use makes that distinction, not a dictionary. I've only heard the term spilt when referring to objects being broken in pieces, never used to refer to any liquid. Spilt as the past tense of spill deviates from the -ed suffix that we commonly see in most words. That being said, spilled makes more sense grammatically.

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    Ravenlight

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    #86  Edited By Ravenlight

    I like how the "first post" controversy is more interesting than Friend Codes.

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    Homelessbird

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    #87  Edited By Homelessbird

    @deathstriker666: This argument is about as semantic as it gets, but here's my two cents:

    I was brought up in a household with a very archaic idiomatic speech, as my mom speaks like her father, who was raised primarily by his grandparents, who were born in the mid 1800s.

    In my household, the commonly used phrase was "no sense crying over spilt milk"

    I only heard the "spilled" version later in life

    So I doubt that the former version is less correct than the latter, but you may be right about "spilled" being the modern vernacular usage.

    /grammar nerd off

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    robbierage

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    #88  Edited By robbierage

    Reggie: I'm very good, how are you?

    Iwata: YEAHIMFINE THANKYOU

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    vinsanityv22

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    #89  Edited By vinsanityv22

    Yup. Sure do remember exchanging Friend Codes on Nintendolife forums for Sonic & Sega All Stars Racing, Mario Kart, and some other games. Was a pain in the butt.

    To Nintendo's credit, I sure don't remember people talking about penises online though. Or being racist. So maybe Friend Codes work! Or, much more likely, gaming online strangers isn't so bad when no one has headsets and all the mainstream gaming douches are on Xbox Live.

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    haggis

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    #90  Edited By haggis

    Nintendo, in my opinion, spends entirely too much time trying to get users to play their systems the way Nintendo wants them to be played. Rather than give gamers what they want and expect in a modern console, they try to corral them. They still don't quite seem to understand what online gaming is about, even if they're slowly coming around.

    I imagine Microsoft and Sony will both have more advanced social networking built into their online services in the next gen, and here's Nintendo barely catching up. Again. Strange, because otherwise they seem like a somewhat consumer-responsive company. They just have this huge blind spot when it comes to online gaming.

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    Jnorman

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    #91  Edited By Jnorman

    Oh nintendo and their social gaming bubble.

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    sopachuco13

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    #92  Edited By sopachuco13

    Th e amount of PR posturing going on here is palpable.

    I wish they could just say, "We didn't follow current trends and we ended up paying for it."

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    HeyMrDeadMan

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    #93  Edited By HeyMrDeadMan

    When dealing with Nintendo and Online, always assume the worst.

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