ABC news alert: "Predators are using Nintendo DS"

I apologize on behalf of the entire city!

It's worth noting, however, that Adam McKay, writer/director of Anchorman, modeled much of his news team on Philly's Action News from the 70s.

What about Xbox LIve?

Wow... What a lame story.

Thanks for the link to the complaint line guys, I sent them a little email of nasty.

"What about Xbox Live?"

Yeah no kidding. : ABC is retarded.

This just in, some predators use candy to lure children. Candy should be outlawed.

I too filed a complaint. Complete and utter BS.

Yeah, I live here. I apologize, as well as #1.

I sent them an email this morning, but I still haven't gotten a response.

i agree with number five. in order to ensure the safety and well-being of our nations children candy should be outlawed. oh and every child should be wrapped in a 1ft thick layer of bubble-wrap.

Nintendo CLAIMS that users must be within 65 feet to contact each other in this manner.

Well, you bunch of sensationalist jerks couldn't be bothered to flippin' test it, now could you? I don't 65 feet on my DS, and even still..."People within 65 feet can harm your kids" is not exactly "Special Report" worthy. Why bother texting a kid you plan to kidnap, when you're within 65 and can just rush forward and kidnap the kid? That's hardly what I, or anyone else calls "luring".

If Aliens start using the DS will it be Aliens vs Predators?

(Sorry)

If the 'predator' was within 65 feet, then I think something more sinister was going on.

I'll beleive this when I hear the first story of a kid actually being abducted with this method. I guess it was a slow news day in Philly..

"Strangers can use this toy to lure unsuspecting children to dangerous places."

"that person must also be using another DS system and be within 65 feet"

I don't know how to respond to that line of reasoning.

Holy god. They'll think twice about doing this anytime soon.

This has been posted on:
GameFAQs' DS board
Nintendo's NSider board
Slashdot
Digg
Joystiq
Gamespy
Go Nintendo
...More coming to a site new YOU!

Here is the sad part people: as much as we hear about priests, boy-scout leaders, and internet pedophiles luring children into horrible sexual acts, the sad fact of the matter is that 70% of sexual abuse against children is done by parents, step-parents, boyfriends/girlfriends of parents, or other family members. Instead of saying that video games and everything else is the blame for all of our society's problems, maybe we should ban parents from having children?

Whoa! There's a different Brian around here?

Stop claiming to be me #16

I filed a complaint aswell, but I didn't notice this before:

"Nintendo confirms what happened to Emily is possible but the company claims that person must also be using another DS system and be within 65 feet. Like our expert, Nintendo also warns parents to educate their children not to talk to strangers even on their gaming system. Also, beware, there are other wireless gaming systems made by different manufacturers and they may have similar issues."

Still, it seems to contradict the rest of the article, which implies that the DS is capable of chatting over the internet.

What ABC should have done was focus on a service like Xbox Live, which lets *anyone* talk to *anyone* *anywhere*. Instead, they chose to focus on the DS, and add a note at the end; "Well, other systems have similar abilties, so, uh, yeah, they might be bad too."

So...why does ABC focus on Nintendo's system, when theirs is the only of the big three to actually feature safety features?

Prey vs Predator...lol

I was wondering when joystiq would post this. I read it hours ago.. It is just shameless journalism, the spin is just incredible they even went as far as calling Nintendo's technical explanation a "claim". I'm in the UK, I don't watch ABC but it this is what you guys have to put up with the a boycott is needed because this is not news.

I mean Nintendo have gone out of their way to prevent such utter nonsense being written about their products and then this.

I made my complaint soon after reading it. There isn't much we can achieve but still...

I wouldn't be surprised that there's a little thing in the fine print that says "This news report Sponsored by Sony Computer Entertainment".

Someone either paid to have this article done, or I weep for the state of journalism in this day and age.

Check out this part of the site:

http://abclocal.go.com/wpvi/story?section=children_first&id=3297128

It is supposed to offer some sort of advice to worried parents on how to protect their children from these predators.

This is an extract from the site, a comment by a POLICE CHIEF.

Jim Murray, Police Chief: "I have a friend of mine who told me that his son was on-line when he was thirteen, and a sexual predator had wanted him to send nude pictures of himself to them, and my friend sent him a major virus for his computer."

We all know the "predator" is a horrible monster, but sending viruses isn't that illegal.

My complaint:

Hello,

I found your article "The Nintendo DS System" to be pretty misinformed.

FYI, Nintendo has been quite cautious about this sort of thing - chat over the internet is only permitted between players who are already in contact with one another via some other method, so contact can never be initiated via the internet when using the DS. Presumably they're doing this at some cost in users and/or revenue, since it limits the appeal of their online games somewhat.

Local-area chat, where the users must be in close proximity, is indeed possible with strangers. But any sane child would react to a nearby stranger joining their chatroom in the same way as they'd react to him walking up and joining a conversation. The girl in the story is a case in point.

Given all of this, Mr. Dunn's comments come across as particularly ill-informed. I am surprised that neither he, nor you, bothered taking a few minutes to get the story straight. For your convenience, here is the actual story:
1) Large corporation willingly sacrifices money and customers to make their product safer for children.
2) Child approached by scary man.

I predicted this nonsense even *before* the DS was in stores...

Can they document a single instance of a child that came to harm from from a predator with a DS? No? Didn't think so.

Besides, isn't a child under the influence of video games likely to murder any stranger that approaches, innocently or otherwise? Aren't the PSP owners playing GTA due to turn every hotspot into a blood bath any day now? Or are we not playing the killer kids card this week?

#16 and #17... i am sparticus!!!

HOW?

You can't even chat with people unless you are already in their area!!!!!

http://www.tv.com/child-abduction-is-not-funny/episode/178381/summary.html

This is a MUST READ. Right on topic here.

I hate programs like that. They screw up the facts and blow everything out of proportion and then they get all of these ignorant parents all freaked out over nothing.

If only I could use the DS to lure hot chicks...

ABC is owned by Disney, a company that has always felt threatened by Nintendo, even utilizing innate American xenophobia to demonize Nintendo. Furthermore, Disney has some strong ties to many of Nintendo's competitors. Being that the DS has been out for some time now, Disney's decision (and yes, Disney, as a whole, is responsible for the information disseminated from any of its parts) to attack Nintendo wi-fi now comes as no surprise, especially when you consider Disney's past. With the exception of the equal opportunity hysterics of Jack Thompson, Nintendo has always been an inordinately visible target for criticism in the mainstream press, despite Ninty's efforts to cover their asses in nearly every conceivable way. I'm certain that this won't be the last effort to spark anti-Nintendo hysteria before the year is through. It will be interesting to see how much worse this kind of exposure gets before it gets better.

As a result of the ABC news story, the child molester demographic raises sales of the Nintendo DS by 11%. Seriously though, its not possible for a predator to get to a kid over the WiFi network, as you need friend codes to play with someone. I like how they forgot to mention that in their effing report.

Fawar I don't doubt that there was some sentiment of hate from disney towards nintendo (pikachu and mickey mouse and all) but this just makes ABC news look horrible. Hey why don't we start drowning puppies and Kittens before Pedophiles can use them to lure kids in. If that was the best disney could do they are idiots. I can't wait till NBC does the New Dateline exclusive.

Hello I'm Stone Philips, we brougt 50 Nintendo DS's and handed them to our producers then we sent down false children in open Wi-Fi spots to set the bate in conjuction with police. What you are about to see is distubring as you see the Largest Pedophile raid ever!

Once caught they will be beaten and stomped about by Fat Italian plumbers Stabbed repeatedly with the Master sword. Then electricuted to death by rats that have electrodes connected to them as cheese is placed all over the pedophiels body. If that doesn't work We will sentence them to Dick Cheney Duck Hunt! Nintendo will Not FORGIVE!

They can all come and find a home on my DS. I'm so bored with Animal Crossing. Unless your friends own it, no one can visit your town. I NEED SOME FRIEND CODES! And some friends!

hahah hillarious, Zsavior!! But, seriously if viewers were more critical of news sources, they'd have no choice but to work with some sort of ethical integrity and being a mouthpiece for corporate overlords just isn't journalistic integrity, IMO.

#15,16,17-Uh,was somebody up there looking for Brian??

It's journalism like this that gives gaming a bad name in the general public. :/

I agree Fawarz first things we learned in the media class I took was, the big entertainment and media congolmerates (Disney and Sony being two of the top tier)look out for each other and stay off other threats to success. I could totally see one telling the other to broadcast negative news about the DS. I remember my professor telling us that if we looked into most new papers there are many factual mistakes because of poor journalistic practices on finding stories. One such mistake I can remember vaguely was in the New York Times it mention Sega dreamcast had stopped production(this was after a month of its release) and Sega had been bought out by Nintendo.

So I see your point Fawarz media can be manipulated by people handing out false information for their own monetary gain, it is just that something this horriblely blantant and sensasionalistic would surprise me if they actually engienered this and thought it would work. I don't think any game company wants to go down the media route of Kids and sexual predators, for we see the Jack Thompson's of the world doing Truth commericals about Take Two and other video game companies aiming at babys for sex. Imagine the website for that. WWW.JackThompson-blundering.BS...Truth.com

I use the ds to seduce my wife from the livingroom from time to time. Maybe they have a point.

I don't see a reason to watch "mainstream" TV news anymore, except to laugh at this sort of thing.

My top 5 reasons for NOT watching the news on TV:

5. Everything is overdramatized. This is sometimes true on online content, but it seems to be more prevalent on traditional TV broadcast news. Probably because they're trying to hold onto their audience as people discover that new fangled Interweb thing.
4. Information online is available in a more timely manner.
3. Online I can skip the irrelevant info and go straight to what I want to see.
2. These days, for myself and most people I know anyways, consuming content on someone else's schedule is unacceptable. This goes for entertainment as well as news and is why DVRs and podcasts are so popular. I don't have time to sit down and watch the 10 o'clock news every night. I have sleep to catch up on!
1. We don't have strippers as news anchors in the US. Not on network TV, anyways.

Sloopydrew: if you really want to swap friend codes, why not go to one of the zillion friend-code swapping websites that have cropped up. Also, just about every popular games forum has a friend-code swapping thread.

For example, you could go to http://www.animalcrossingcommunity.com/

Marlor, what are you doing spreading that pedophile-breeding-ground crap in here? Can't you see you just took the bait?!? :P

hahahaha- "If Aliens start using the DS will it be Aliens vs Predators?"

i'm going to disagree that this story is all that bad. i agree that it was written and designed to scare soccer moms. but it's also educational, since there are def a lot of parents out there who do not realize the communication abilities of the DS. yeah theyre ignorant and that's their own fault, but its good to bring this to their attention. and xbox live has been the focus of other articles. every article does not have to mention every possible means of luring children, lest it be "biased" against some fanboy's chosen and annointed system. and the article didnt say "ban the ds"- it said "be careful and educate yourself about game systems". a lot of people here seemed to miss that distinction.

this article was almost certainly useful to many parents who didn't know that the DS could be used to communicate; parents who will be more cautious with the system in the future. if you want to complain about it being sensational, fine, but the subject is still important and useful to many people.

6abc is too busy sucking on disny's manhood to consider what writing a foolish article like that would do to a highly successful company. its a good thing they didn't have their facts straight

Sony paid Emily $1,000 and a free PSP to every ABC Staff Member for that...
I mean, it wouldn't surprise me...

Its either Sony paid ABC to lure that girl and make a story, or that girl was an attention seeking b*tch.

"And eventually I got really scared that I shut the thing off without responding back."

Oh noes! I turned it off! Me so scared. BIG DEAL.

"Predators are using Nintendo DS anywhere in the world."

omg, i r t3h 57 yr old pedo, i liv n brazil, i wan molest 9 yr old in manhattan using mario kart

WTF ABC? You guys need to get off what your smoking, and do your work with at least half your brain.

I send them my 2 cents worth:

I recently found you Nintendo DS article on a video game blog site and would love to file a complaint about it.
First off you lead people by describing Nintendo's WiFi connection in great detail and then blaming the attack on the Nintendo WiFi service. Well for starters, there are only 3 titles that currently run on the Nintendo WiFi system, that lets you play with anyone anywhere. But guess what, PictoChat is not one of those games.(Tony Hawk, Animal Crossing, and Mario Kart DS are the titles currently supported.)
In order to talk to some one via PictoChat you must be with 65 feet and have another DS. Which you stated in your article, down at the very end. In which Nintendo themselves tells you, you guys are idiots but in a nice way.
Whoever the flip Jud was some one in the same room or within 50feet of the Keels(65ft is the range but rarely achieved).
So the question is what was the parent doing let the kid talk to strangers in a public place? See the problem is not the game system its the parents. But we are not going down that road today.
Also just some more information for your crack team of journalists. The Nintendo WiFI Connection I mentioned earlier, use numbers as IDs. So you can't end up with bad words with numbers can you? And Nintendo strongly the condones the sharing of the Number IDs on its forums. So Nintendos is doing there part to keep the kids safe. But what are you guys doing, spreading pandimonum to the concerned parents who are taking away their kids DS. Great Job guys way to suck it up. I guess it would help if you guys checked your facts first before publishing your story, but oh waht was I thinking this the US news media we are talking about here.
Good Day!

kyle. good job at writing a complaint that does more harm than good.

"And Nintendo strongly the condones the sharing of the Number IDs on its forums. So Nintendos is doing there part to keep the kids safe."

wha? i do not think that word means what you think it means.

"I guess it would help if you guys checked your facts first before publishing your story, but oh waht was I thinking this the US news media we are talking about here."

uh huh. that'll win them over. *golf claps*

ignorant people exist on both sides of any argument apparently. if you think they took any of your letter seriously and are not simply laughing their ass off at it... you are mistaken. it does the 'gaming community' more harm than good sending letters like this. we'd all benefit if some things were left unsent. or at least were spelled correctly and used the correct words.

I also sent a response ysterday after finding out that the reporter(read: hack) in question actually checked with Gamerdad.com about these facts and then promptly ignored them. That makes the article more than inaccurate, it makes it slanderous. I copied my email to Nintendo Legal as well as ABC News Headquarters along with links to both the original article and the gamerdad column detailing the conversation he had with the reporter. The only response I've received so far is from ABC News HQ to tell me that they'd look into the article background. All I'd like to see is a formal retraction or clarification of the facts in the story. Removing the hack from their staff would be a bonus though.