Nintendo Hates Friends

It’s really the only explanation as to why they have to make it so difficult to have them.

Nintendo Gamers Online (via Destructoid) has more or less confirmed what we basically already knew but were too afraid to accept: the Wii will use game specific friends codes.

I’ll mention that their confirmation is not 100% official, but they base it on newly released screenshots from Mario Strikers Charged that clearly show an interface to input Wii Codes.

I don’t know how much more I have to add to this over their own rant (which you should check out), but I’ll give my 2 cents as well after the break.

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Tapping into Free Games

Kotaku brings good news that Gametap will be changing their service starting May 31st to allow for a free, ad-based subscription as well as the more traditional ad-free paid subscriptions. A rotating list of 30-60 games will be offered through a Gametap “Lite” player that will include ads.

I think this is a great idea. I’ve just never felt like $10 a month would be worth the price, since I’d only use it on occasion. But, for those few times that I may want to play a game they offer, such as Sam and Max, this could definitely work.

It’s unclear exactly how the ads will be implemented. My guess is that they’ll be a bit more intrusive than just a bunch of ads hanging around the borders of the player, but as long as they aren’t popping up every minute or two, it should be fine. Even if it follows a “TV” model of 18 minutes of ads per hour (which my guess is it’ll be even less), I think this would still be sufficient for us cheaper gamers.

*UPDATE*

From the original article:

“The Green Level will be supported with video roll-in ads prior to gameplay in the Deluxe Player and banner ads in the Lite Player.”

There you have it.  The “Green Level” is still free; it just requires registration.  Depending on the player you use, you’ll either have an intro ad, or just banner ads.  Not a bad deal at all, if you ask me.

Conundrum of the Day

Is it strange to anyone else that the console with the worst online connectivity now has free (for a time anyway), final web browsing software while the console with the best, but also subscription-based online connectivity has none?

It’s not exactly a killer app, just a nice little feature.  And it’s just amazing to me that Microsoft, creator of Internet Explorer, still hasn’t implemented a web browser for their Xbox 360.  What exactly are they afraid of?  Is anyone else perplexed by this?