Opinion: Nintendo’s Path to Unified Accounts Won’t Be Easy

Nintendo’s online services have been the laughing stock of most gamers for years. The truth is that while the online gameplay works fine and it’s mostly painless to play people online in most Nintendo games, the lack of ‘advanced’ features have let the overall experience down.

Friend codes are often cited as the number one complaint but that’s largely been solved with one friend code per system now, rather than per game. However that’s all online gameplay, what about Nintendo’s online services? We’ve got DLC now, we’ve got digital purchasing of games and redemption codes.

But the accounts system, or lack of one, is the last elephant in the room. Here’s what Nintendo have said about the system so far:

[quote]A unified account system will be implemented later this year with the launch of the Wii U. Eventually this same account system will be made compatible with Nintendo 3DS systems.”[/quote]

So that’s it, all we’ve got from them. Hardly inspires confidence. Nintendo’s got several problems it needs to resolve before we’ll see anything resembling an Xbox Live Gamertag, PSN account or even Apple ID. Even then, that might be pushing it.

We see three main problems that need to be addressed.

Problem 1: Existing Logins Fragmentation

At the moment, the only ‘login’ we as Nintendo console owners have is for Club Nintendo. Now that works pretty well, depending on where you live. All Club Nintendo’s work essentially the same though, you can link your console to your account and it’ll keep track of purchases, in some countries this can be used to restore your purchases in the event of your system failing or getting stolen or lost. However, this isn’t the majority.

As it currently stands, each Club Nintendo is a separate entity from each other. While the interfaces on the Wii and 3DS look the same and the services are similar, each Club is a totally different database and is in no way connected to each other. This isn’t good if you’re trying to unify all your customers into one account, maintaining four different databases isn’t the best way to tackle this.

There are some exceptions to this though as Nintendo Australia’s Club Nintendo is essentially the European one with some tweaks. We Australians will get emails from the system from Nintendo Europe but it’s all handled by Nintendo Australia.

But then there are countries who aren’t as lucky. While we’re blessed here with a Club Nintendo, there’s a whole whack of countries who don’t have it. Club Nintendo could be the basis for Nintendo’s account system but it could never be the replacement because then you run into a similar problem as problem two.

Problem 2: Region Locks

Most online stores are region locked, this isn’t a problem really though because for the most part you’re free to make any region account you want (even if you have to jump a through a few hoops for some consoles).

For the most part if you buy an American Xbox Live Arcade game on your American Xbox Live account, you can play it on any Xbox. If you buy a Japanese iOS game on your Japanese iPhone, it’ll play on any iPhone as long as the account is on it. On a PlayStation 3, you can even play Japanese PSN games on a US account. The biggest exception to this rule are ‘Xbox On Demand’ titles which can contain region locking – you now see the problem.

But there’s a problem with Nintendo hardware – the hardware is region locked. If I buy a copy of New Super Mario Bros. 2 on my Japanese 3DS, it’s locked to that hardware or any other Japanese 3DS regardless of whether I have an account or not. Nintendo’s account system, no matter what it ends up being, won’t help you in this regard. The Playstation Vita already has a similar problem too, you can only have one account per system on it and while you can switch region you’ll need to factory reset each time to swap, but at least you can if you want to.

Nintendo’s region lock will stop people from buying games from other regions and playing them, the only two things this will hurt is Nintendo’s wallet and the soul crushed gamers who just wants to play some Japanese games.

Problem 3: Existing Software

I’ll use myself as an example for this one, I own a Wii, a 3DS from Japan, America and Australia and no doubt I’ll have multiple Wii U consoles at some point in the future.

So what about my purchases on the Wii and 3DS I have already? Nintendo’s most likely going to release a program for the Wii that will transfer your licences to your your new Wii U but will I be able to play them on other consoles considering they’ll be on my account? We don’t expect that WiiWare to work on the DSi nor DSiWare games on my Wii but what about Virtual Console titles?

Does someone have to buy the NES version of Super Mario Bros. twice to play it on a Wii and a 3DS? What happens when we get accounts? If I have Super Mario Bros. on the NES from the Wii’s Virtual Console, can I play it on my 3DS? Probably not and here’s why.

Each Virtual Console title that Nintendo releases is wrapped in a custom emulator for each game. This is great as it allows Nintendo to tweak each game slightly to the experience that is great for everyone, what this means though is that the Wii version of Super Mario Bros. won’t work on the 3DS, it’s essentially a Wii program.

Nintendo might be able to create some sort of ‘Universal App’ that solves this (much like the iPad and iPhone compatible titles for iOS, but this is unlikely).

Nintendo’s stubbornness for online might be finally waning, but it’s got now 6 years of a digital baggage to clean up. Between the Wii, the DSi and 3DS there’s so many different systems, programs and websites that consolidating them all into one is going to be a very hard task if they bother at all.

These above problems are just problems with the potential account system for the Wii U and 3DS, we haven’t even covered what Nintendo needs to do to secure third party titles and avoid embarrassing situations like they had with payments for WiiWare developers. That’s for another time.

The reality of it though is that Nintendo probably isn’t going to do what everyone thinks should be done. Nintendo likes to forge its own unique way of doing things which usually falls short of everyone’s expectations.

One thing for sure is that Nintendo will need to have their online and account system ready for the Wii U on day one. 3DS support will likely come later but they can’t afford to release another new half-arsed online system.