Friend Codes will rear their ugly heads on Wii U – Reggie
Following E3 and our excitement over the announcement of the MiiVerse and other Wii U related online infrastructure, Reggie Fils-Aime has dealt a rather damaging blow to our morale. The Wii U will continue to have friend codes much like the Wii and Nintendo DS/3DS do. No, wait, scratch that last bit.
Apparently, according to Fils-Aime’s recent musings to Kotaku, the Wii U will have a “different’ system for Friend Codes.
You’ll be able to still interact with all those users in the MiiVerse without actually adding them, which is both good and bad, but actually adding these people as a friend will “give you more options”. Fils-Aime also went on to elaborate that the method by which you identify yourself as a friend with another user will be a “lot simpler than what’s happening today” as well.
While the details are annoyingly scant and we’re really unsure about just how this system will work, we’re still a little bit disappointed that we’ll have to trade arbitrarily generated numbers instead of chosen usernames. How do you feel about this announcement? Does it hold Nintendo one step back in catching up with the other console manufacturers’ online infrastructure or is it just fine?
I guess we will have to wait and see. If in Miiverse you can see for example Mii’s from Australia talking and interacting about a game you have, you could be able to add them as a friend with a simple point and touch of the game pad. Maybe Mii’s that have joined you in an online game show up somewhere in Miiverse and again it only takes a click or two and you can add them. There still might be a username option for search functions. But having a friend code will skip all that and you can directly input it like we do now as annoying as it is. Hopefully it is just something that will sit quietly in the background.
The only really bad points about the friend codes was no unified code for all games on one console and the fact you had this huge arse digit to remember.
I can live with the digits if need be, just get rid of the unique friend code for every game!