Dear Reader:
High Voltage discusses Nintendo's online stance, and working within those guidelines
A portion of an HDWarriors interview with Rob Nicholls, Lead Game Designer on The Conduit…
HD: Friend Codes and other limitations will obviously affect the end result of The Conduit. I ask since you’ve been working with them - Why in your opinion does Nintendo insist upon such rigid online restrictions even though the Wii has an extensive built in Parental Controls feature?
RN: I think they’re just very concerned - I mean we’ve had lots of conversations with Nintendo. They’ve been very open with us, and are very sensitive to our needs. So they’re more than willing to work with us, but I think it’s a combination of:
1. They’re very concerned about the people playing their console, because many Wii gamers tend to be much younger than 360 and PS3 gamers. So they are concerned about that.
2. Is that I think the online component of the Wii has caught them off guard a little bit and they didn’t expect consumers to want to use it as extensively as, for example, we intend to make our system. So we’ve noticed in our development that their servers seem to work much better for small numbers of people, but when you start getting up there in higher numbers, things become more problematic.
But like I said, they’ve been very sensitive and very helpful. I mean, we ask them questions all the time, we’re still asking them questions, and we’re working out the details, but those are the two reasons that I feel are the case.