[metroid_dragon]

Nintendo's in-house Public Relations manager, Eric Walter recently came out and said two things that just blew me away, and not in a good way. First off, he stated:

"But the way that we look at it is, we really don't want people storing every single game they buy on their drive. When you buy a game, it's yours forever, so you can delete it, and go back and get it at any time you want. In a way, we liken it to putting music on your iPod you listen to it for a while, and then you get tired of it, and you pull it off, and you put some new stuff on."

How could Mr Walter possibly think that people are going to be satisfied with this amount of space for much longer? The Wii is not even a year old and many people I know, and myself, are very close to running out of space entirely. I DO want to keep every game on my flash drive, it's great to see all those channels, and it saves so much time compared to re-downloading a game when you feel like playing it. Sure, games right now don't take up too much space, but that's because there are so little Nintendo 64 and other large-sized files available to download. In another 2 years, when the Wii is still in the middle of it's life, we are going to be deleting many of our games and re-downloading others when it should not be necessary. I bought a 30 gig Creative music player because I despise constantly maintaining my collecting of music pointlessly. Eric, It doesn't if YOU don't want people storing every single game we buy on our drive, because you are not the consumer.

We want a hard drive. We want to be able to play our Virtual Console games from our flash cards, not just store games in them. We want flexibility.

"But the way that we think about friend codes is, when folks are online, and they want to play, they typically want to play with their friends. And so, they want to keep it to groups of people they know. We've seen, in the feedback we've gotten, that people don't mind the friend codes. They like them, because it keeps them playing with the friends that they do know, and it keeps their games undisturbed, if you will."

I think Mr. Walter mistakes our wanting of friend codes, for our desire to have any kind of a friends list. Yes, we are happy that we have internet play and can play with friends in some of our games, but the system could be done oh-so-much-better. Something is still better than nothing, and we accept that we could have nothing, given Nintendo's reluctance in the past to incorporate internet play in it's games. But the systems that Microsoft and Sony use for their friends lists are much more useful. Friends should be associated with the console, not the games. I don't want to have to enter dozens of friend codes over the life of the Wii. I want to just add my friend "Joe blow" on my console's friend list and now we are friends no matter what game is in our Wii. if we ever are playing the same game, all the options for playing together become available, but we should not have to have the same software disk inserted into the console at the same time before he re-becomes my friend.

Nintendo, take a hint; Just because the other two consoles are doing it, doesn't mean it's a bad move.

[Eraserhead]

I don't have a Wii yet, but you store your Virtual Console games on the flash drive? That's just not right, you buy the games you should at least be able put them on an SD card, I thought that was why Nintendo implemented them work on the Wii. What's the point of having a 4gb or perhaps an even larger stick if can't put some games on it?

And I agree 100% - friends should be associated with the console not the game. And I think Nintendo is hiding a secret agenda behind the whole friends you know thing(even though I think playing with good friends is a good thing). I think Nintendo made the whole friend code system to limit the people you play with to those that live close to you, that's because Wi-fi performs slower and laggier between longer distances.

[metroid_dragon]

I think Nintendo made the whole friend code system to limit the people you play with to those that live close to you, that's because Wi-fi performs slower and laggier between longer distances.

That is very possible actually, I know they've even announced that Smash Bros Brawl should not be played with someone from another continent due to the horrific lag. (well I exaggerate slightly, but they did say it is better to play with people closer to you)

[Rick Hard]

I have to agree 100% on the virtual console thing. If i buy a game i want to keep it forever. I dont want to have to go download it every time i want to play it. How could he even thing that gamers would accept that. I hate it as well having to change music every now and again. When i had a minidisc play i went for months before changing music simply because it was a pain in the a**. I dont want to have to re-download a game when i want to play it. Especially seeing as i paid up to 10 euro for a game. Sure the save games will be kept, but its hand, easy and quick having them all on the channels page. Re-downloading is a really bad idea. I must have about 10 gigs in flash drives and another 30 on my creative. And soon ill have another 320gig in the hard drive im gonna get. Why cant we just use an SD card or something to store file. However the problem with that is piracy. That is probably why they didnt allow copying to SD card etc in the first place. But either way they should have put a larger storage space in it.

As for the friend code situation. I have rarely played online. The only only compatible game i have is Mario Strikes football. Its a real pity Metroid isnt Mulitplayer online enabled. That would have been Bad a**. what they should do is make a dedicated online metroid game. Like counterstrike was online for online play at first. That'd be sweet.