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[Krevsin]

http://www.polygon.com/2017/3/2/14788532/nintendo-switch-update-friend-code-friend-cap

Oh boy oh boy I sure do love myself some FRIEND CODES.

[Aklyon]

http://www.polygon.com/2017/3/2/14788532/nintendo-switch-update-friend-code-friend-cap

Oh boy oh boy I sure do love myself some FRIEND CODES.

You made a damn account system, nintendo! Use it for more than the eshop and FE Heroes for fucks sake!

[Sean Mirrsen]

http://www.polygon.com/2017/3/2/14788532/nintendo-switch-update-friend-code-friend-cap

Oh boy oh boy I sure do love myself some FRIEND CODES.

You made a damn account system, nintendo! Use it for more than the eshop and FE Heroes for fucks sake!

The Switch just barely got its eShop access and web applet for accessing public WiFi. There is barely any online play infrastructure in place. Have some flippin' patience.

[ein]

that sort of infrastructure is the kind of thing that should be in place BEFORE launch

plus the fact that nintendo are still sticking to their antiquated ideas of doing things despite the fact that literally everyone else has had years to perfect this shit shows something of an unwillingness on their part to adapt

[Sean Mirrsen]

There are a lot of such things that, conventionally, "should be" in place before launch. Online infrastructure, media functions, social media functions.

Nintendo is anything but conventional, but they said they'll have everything done right - give them time. You have literally no reason to even use the friends system right now anyway, since you can't do much with it.

Besides, this is not "the launch". It's the beginning of the launch. I've likened console releases to rocket launches before. Nintendo's packing a second set of boosters for the holiday season, instead of just coasting to orbit after the first MECO.

http://www.polygon.com/2017/3/2/14788532/nintendo-switch-update-friend-code-friend-cap

Oh boy oh boy I sure do love myself some FRIEND CODES.

They're STILL doing friend codes? Those things were outdated when the original DS came out.

They're not keeping the friend codes as a primary system. It's what their current infrastructure uses internally, just like these forums identify you as "user 11218". They'll have more handy features as soon as they're ready - or more importantly, as soon as there's a need for them. Which is likely as early as by the end of the month, with the Splatoon 2 testfire.

[Krevsin]

I'm not buying that excuse. Nintendo is a multi-million dollar corporation. If this sort of thing wasn't set up before launch, it's due to deliberate negligence or ignorance on their part.

Nintendo isn't an indie dev, operating with a team of 4 people struggling to iron out as many bugs as possible before launch day, they are an international corporation worth many millions of dollars. They could've hired people to work exclusively on the online components and they most likely did so. I cannot foresee any reason other than either a deliberate decision to use friend codes by the higher-ups or that they started working on the online component far too late in the development process.

Neither of which paints them in a very flattering light.

[Sean Mirrsen]

I'm not buying that excuse. Nintendo is a multi-million dollar corporation. If this sort of thing wasn't set up before launch, it's due to deliberate negligence or ignorance on their part.

Nintendo isn't an indie dev, operating with a team of 4 people struggling to iron out as many bugs as possible before launch day, they are an international corporation worth many millions of dollars. They could've hired people to work exclusively on the online components and they most likely did so. I cannot foresee any reason other than either a deliberate decision to use friend codes by the higher-ups or that they started working on the online component far too late in the development process.

Neither of which paints them in a very flattering light.

They already said that they are bringing social media integration for friends list purposes later on. Whether that is delayed by intention or circumstance is irrelevant.

You should consider that all software development takes time, otherwise we wouldn't have games being stuck in development for years. Nintendo needed the Switch released at the set date - so they released it, and they made it just ready enough to be released. Yes, perhaps they could burn more money to get more features done faster, but why should they? If the features have no practical use until a later date, it would have been literally a waste of money.

[Krevsin]

Yes it would be a waste of money to make things convenient for the players and to make sure that the console is as feature-complete as possible on the day it is launched to the wider public. When the people actually start to interact with it and its online components. 

I'm not insinuating that software development is free or instantaneous. My point was more that Nintendo has the money to afford software development and should've had enough foresight to have the front-end for the online functionality of their new flagship console developed when that console hit mass market. Not a couple weeks later, not a couple months later, but when it comes out. That they said they'd add it later doesn't really help their case any given how it just outright states that the console is not feature-complete on launch. Which is not a good look for a hardware manufacturer.

Of course given that Nintendo had a pre-set date for when the console was released (or at least the general month of it, since they are just desperate to catch the end of the financial year) they should've taken measures to make sure the online functionality of the system were as developed as it would be, with all the things they planned for it to have being in place. To put it simply: they should've started work on it earlier.

Once again, Nintendo is a multi-million dollar international corporation. If they screwed up when the development for their online components started, it's entirely on them and just makes them look incompetent. They have had 10 years (2007 was when the friend codes first appeared IIRC and people decried it as a bad idea back then already) to adapt and change how they approach online functionality design. They have the money to hire outside experience if they haven't learned anything. But seemingly they did neither of these things and just went to the old reliable fallback of half-arsing it.

[wierd]

Actually, Nintendo's solvency is not so sound as you might expect.

From an investor point of view, they have sold lacklustre consoles for 2 generations, and had only mediocre game sales.
Nintendo *NEEDS* the switch to be a success, in order to keep investors feeling safe with their money.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-nintendo-results-idUSKBN15F0K9

Without a serious turnaround with Switch, and 3rd party sales and middleware driving nintendo branding, the company looks more and more like a fossil, like Atari and pals.

[Krevsin]

Still doesn't mean they shouldn't have started the development on their online functionality early enough to not have to fall back on half-measures like friend codes. They might not have enough money to outright buy a world-class programmer team to work on them but they've been in the business of making software for long enough that they could at least know the ballpark of when it'd be done.

Even if things went wrong during development for them unexpectedly, and there's a perfectly rational reason for it, it's still neither a good look for Nintendo in general or for the Switch to come out with half-measures to "hold us over" during the launch period. Once again, they might be barely scraping out of the red but they're still a multi-million dollar international corporation (and no I won't tire of saying that) with a large user-base with a product aimed at an audience that doesn't appreciate half-measures.

[ein]

nintendo has had, what, 4 consoles? to implement basic fucking shit like actual accounts, with account-bound purchases and friends. i can't help but feel like maybe, just maybe, they should've put effort into improving their user experience rather than focus on ~innovations~ that nobody actually likes or uses, if they can get away with it

suffering financially is just a natural consequence of refusing to adapt to the market

[itisnotlogical]

DS, Wii, 3DS, Wii U, now Switch makes five.

[Krevsin]

Well the Wii U and the 3DS were both attempts to recapture the lightning in the bottle that was the original Wii (or in 3DS's case a combo of the wii's 'central gimmick' approach with the success of the DS's dual screens), with the Wii U failing catastrophically (in part due to the terrible marketing and the drought of games for it) and the 3DS recovering after a pretty catastrophic launch and first iteration of the handheld. Remember the Ambassador program? That was some pretty stellar damage control on Nintendo's part and it helped change the 3DS from a faltering handheld to holding its own pretty well on the handheld market against smart phones and tablets.

I really have high hopes for the Switch and I will probably get it either second-hand or during the christmas sales (if it goes on sale) but my enthusiasm for it keeps being curbed by these baffling decisions Nintendo keeps making. Nintendo gonna Nintendo but unfortunately to Nintendo means doing really really stupid decisions apparently.

[ein]

i initially had high hopes for the switch, but i feel like every new bit of info we got just made it seem worse and worse, especially since it seems like nintendo just constantly refuses to learn

of course, at the end of the day, i'm still capcom's bitch and as soon as the switch gets a monster hunter, you know i'll be buying one

[SOLDIER First]

I mean, even if it was weird, at least they're kind of indicative of the console in question. Are you going to be more confused about what a 3DS does vs. the XBox 180?