New Wii features: Message Board & Play History

All I want to know -- will this information be available online? :)

Definitely looking on branching out MyGamerCard.net (Xbox 360 Leaderboards, GamerCards, etc) into the other console spaces, since they're going to have similar features in that regard.

When I read this I thought of Xbox Live. How did you make the connection to 1984???

daver: As a good place to start, I'd recommend checking out the courses on developmental psychology from The Teaching Company, specifically the "Psychology of Human Behavior" set which gives all of the viewpoints and discusses the development of psychological thought over time. Some books that are good concerning some of the issues often involved in gaming are "On Killing" by Dave Grossman which will give you an idea of how the human brain perceives ACTUAL killing as opposed to virtual (though the author himself, in later books, falters in his logic), "Killing Monsters: Why Children NEED Fantasy, Super-Heros, and Make-Believe Violence" by Gerard Jones, "Everything Bad Is Good For You" by Steven Johnson.

General history that has nothing to do with gaming is also very helpful. Getting inside the head of people of ancient times that had radically different conceptions from ours, and seeing how those views affected their society and people at that time, is also helpful. 100 years ago, children were regularly exposed to animal slaughter and real-world violence. Did it warp them and destroy society? Lead to serial killers and the like? People don't change, and videogames are not really that new if you view them simply as another way humans can transfer ideas to one another and show each other things from their imagination.

Daver, any attack on games here is going to feel like a personal attack to a lot of people - I'm sure you understand that. This is a gaming website. You made some very interesting points, but then you resorted to a crass generalisation - "Sedentary screen based entertainment only makes your child materialistic and dumb" - which is bound to get people riled considering how many of us play, and benefit from, such entertainment. Sure, if it's all they ever do, staring at a screen isn't healthy - everything in moderation... but such outright criticism is unfounded.

---

I'm still not 100% sure about the Wii's peripheral features so far.. perhaps the problem is that there doesn't seem to be a coherent concept behind the Wii (from this menu) - I guess it boils down to two things: (1) this screen looks messy... and (2) what happened to the focus on games? Including the inserted game as one option on this screen seems to cheapen them a bit.

That said... I pre-ordered my Wii yesterday :)

i want to ask about the double standard here.
sony steals achievements from xbox -------BAD
nintendo steals achievements from xbox ---- NOT BAD

but dont let sony or xbox steal from nintendo
------SUPER TERRIBLE
what gives?

@otakucode.

cheers.

@ Daver-

If you were not being sarcastic then what discussion were you looking for? I didn't question your parenting skills. I laid how I handle my kids which I think is fair to them because they get to be who they want to be and play the games that are suitable for them. I like having the safe guard as a just in case measure. Do I have parental control on my tv. YEP! Do I have Internet Monitoring..yep. All as safe guards. Not as a substitute to parenting. I think that is what you missed in my posts. I use the features as what they are intended....a back up.

@playclever

point taken.

@ reguy.

I hear you. But it's annoying as all hell when you see some smuck with a five star rating only to realize, that bastard cheated his way to it. I've had some great matches with some really good players that I've beaten and been beaten by...fair and square. I know it's free but like you said we can always hope...

Oh, I should also mention another course at The Teaching Company called "Theories of Human Development" which is extremely good. It discusses the history of developmental psychology, goes into the process by which society has created the concept of an 'adolescent' from a time when children were viewed as fundamentally no different than adults except in size and experience. You might not be all that pleased to learn that the idea of sheltering kids was driven almost entirely by economic forces, and not at all by any evidence that experience 'taints' children. If companies didn't need sophisticated workers to produce complex goods, we would probably not have people waiting until their mid-20s to have children, or any ideas about keeping ideas away from kids until they're old enough to handle them.

@ Jarrett.

I sit behind my 3 year old and he plays wind waker and drinks 'grandmas hearty soup' so he can use the leaf to glide into the water. it makes him smile and i see those smiles and sya yes games are good for making my children smile (some games)

the point i took from you was that you were at work while your kids played games or watched tv . . .

if i am incorrect then i apologise. no insult meant.

Now I am torn between my absolute hatred of all things Spyware (although they are giving us consent, so they must be using it for something nonessential) and my blind love of Nintendo

hmm....

Localized leaderboard will kick ass, however, especially if i can get some guys together for a Wii LAN match over the holidays

Any news on the clearly possible LAN functionality?

From the Online Dictionary of Computing.

"Spyware (Or "adware") - Any type of software that transmits information WITHOUT THE USER'S KNOWLEDGE."

(emphasis mine)

hey retards

it says "WITH USER CONSENT"

@ Daver-

No harm no foul. I wanted to point out that while I am at work and they may be up to no good (as boys their age do) and try to do somthing they should no better. But again that is the struggle of a parent and child. The child will test the parent from time to time to see what the boundaries are.
Although I have never played Wind Waker... I play Mario Soccer, NFL Street, NBA Live, Tony Hawk games, Mario Baseball...and to be real Mario Soccer is kind of fun. But you get where I am going. No ultra violence is allowed. And that rule is set by a higher power....their mother. And that is one boundary I don't challenge....moms have a way of making dads life miserable when those boundaries are tested...if you know what I mean.
Peace, Love and Hair Grease dude....no worries.

@ Jay

Just because you've got nothing to hide doesn't mean you should give up your privacy.

I only say this as I've heard that statement way too often in these so-called times of terror. If there is any way possible for a system to be abused, IT WILL BE. Now, does this mean we should immediately give up on our systems? No. We just have to weigh the good done versus the potential harm all the while trying to conceive any other possible better (and less invasive) alternative.

This said, I do not think there is anything to fear about this feature. It is purely optional (though likely on by default), and even so will only provide fairly non-invasive statistics to Nintendo.

@ daver

I wouldn't worry much about detrimental effects of video games on your children as long as you do pay attention not only to ESRB ratings, but your own experience with games as well as your child's maturity level. Just like you would weigh whether or not a movie, TV show, concert, or even a book is appropriate for your child. There are many examples of modern entertainment being demonized throughout the ages - just about any fun activity was at one point called the devil's tool.

I think everything will turn out well as long as you stay involved in your child's life to make sure that they aren't over-obsessed with any singular activity.

As for shallowness, I believe much of the shallowness you see exhibited by children these days on online games and internet boards can be attributed to an overall lowering of standards by parents and academia, as well as the seemingly brain-dead individuals many children hold as role models these days (Paris Hilton, etc).

I believe all information gathered by a muli national corporation will be used for their benefit and their benefit alone.
Players should get free nintendo points for contributing to nintendo market research. thats only fair.

Everybody talks about how the XBoxs biggest strong point is Live, and all the integrated features it offers, and how its the new standard and anything less than it will seem miserable, so then Nintendo does the unexpected and matches it, maybe even surpassing it in some small aspects, and.......... I just really dont understand the negative reaction, it makes no sense to me, these are fun features to have, what is wrong with them?
Game sales arent the best indicator of a games value, knowing which games actually get played more is a vastly more useful tool. I shall turn this feature on, and all you paranoid tin foil hat-wearing gamers will be left in the dark, me and my kind will get tracked by Nintendo, and the only scary plans this evil corporation has in store for us is making more nasty games that will appeal to us.

interactive gaming with your family is a fabulous thing. much better than tv watching. and this is where i am coming from.
gamerdad is a good website for pointing out games that are incredibly suitable for kids development.

The gathering of player data is not a new phenomenon - Valve's Steam software collects statistics, for example:

http://www.sinepisodes.com/index.php?stats_emergence

As far as I can tell, these kinds of statistics can only improve the gameplay experience.

good point wedgetalon.

see the best place to talk about videogame effects (bad or good ) and such is with gamers.

"I envision the Message Board helping everyone in the family communicate with each other. These days, because everyone is so busy, it is becoming more and more difficult for people to take the time to sit around the table and chat."

Hehe.. sounds like this is something not that many will use.

Now if everyone was connected that would be great, that way we can actually tell the user base instead of going off of units Shipped and sold, because we all know a lot of people went through 1 or two consoles throughout the generation (especially PS2, XBOX, and 360, hell even GBA and DS with their redesigns) I can't wait till all media is downloadable, it will be the tell all to actual userbase.

"From the time we first tanned animal skins, it was said mankind was making himself a slave to luxury as he followed herds and travelled across great wildernesses to satisfy their desires. It's a human tendency, and you do not escape it by redefining your own terms of luxury to hemp clothes and pachouli oil."

Flat out awesome, otakucode. Just awesome.

And parents should keep in mind that people need variety in their life too. Last Friday I watched "The Piano Teacher", a French film directed by Michael Haneke, one of the most interesting directors working today. After that, I watched "Class of Nuke Em High" a complete trash B-movie from Troma.

I listen to Tchaikovsky and switch over to The Bloodhound Gang. I read Plato's "The Republic" and then William S Burroughs "Naked Lunch". When I was a kid, few limits were set on what I could read/watch/play, and those that were set, I broke all of them. I had uncensored, unfiltered access to the Internet at 14 (because that's when the web started) and read Huckleberry Finn from Project Gutenberg for school. Then I read the Anarchists Cookbook. Just because your kid plays a violent game, or watches a movie with sex in it, does not mean their development will be stunted.

There is a vast world of content out there, some of it is nearly worthless trash, some of it is superb enlightening gold. If you want your kids to find the enlightening stuff, about the only chance there is is to encourage them to experience it all. If you try to box them in and only expose them to sanitized stuff, they will write off learning and experiencing through content entirely. That's why so few people today read old philosophers, they've been turned off from them. They don't watch anything but the easiest-to-digest films because they've been discouraged at one time or another, for one reason or another, from delving into things with real substance. Yes, the substance is often mature. But one does not reach maturity by avoiding every single thing of a mature nature! A parents role is to guide their young ones and help them process what they come across much more than control what it is that they do have access to, at least in my opinion.

To hell with sony, to hell with XBL...
I've always been a Nintendo child at heart, and always will!
((But I can't neglect the fact that I do indeed own an Xbox [NOT 360]... But I rarely play it))

I had the NES (and it still worked up to a few years ago!), N64 and Gameboy Color... No not everything (I skipped generations) but I love and adore Nintendo...

Everything I've read about the Wii, and seen about the Wii... has been absolutely amazing, and indeed a revolution in gaming! I love competing against my friends... Competition is my life! Rugby and Wrestling are my favourite sports, and I play them year after year after year!
I'm even going to be captain of my wrestling team at school this year.

So forget the stupid arguments of "Spyware" and "XBL is better" and blah blah blah!!!!

Nintendo is god... Bow down and respect it! :P

Nintendo collects stats for North America, and realizes that more gamers nejoy playing FPS online. Publishers stop porting Japanese online RPGs thinking that not enough people will play them.

Just one possible outcome.

Wow, some people are excitable today.

"Achievement data" doesn't necessarily mean "we stole this from Microsoft." It sounds closer to high-scores, record bests, and statistics to me, rather than preset goals.

Further, it ties in with "data collection," which reminds me of the stats screens in SSB:M and Meteos, stored records of countless little details, handy for amusement and friendly competion between friends. I know that I, for one, welcome a tamper-proof system-wide data page.

Oh, and on sending data: what do you think they're going to do, send you a ransom note saying "we know what you played last Tuesday?" They're going to see what people play most, and use that data to help decide which games to make more content or sequels for first. By the way, Microsoft does, in fact, record what games you play over Live for statistical purposes, just check Major Nelson's blog for weekly updates.

@ 51. "When I read this I thought of Xbox Live. How did you make the connection to 1984???"

It was a joke that big brother is always watching you. It was nothing more then a wity connection to "big brother" and "big N."

@9, Chris:

No, you're not. Me too. I'm gonna be the first person buying that when they release it. I wanna see a Sega game on the channels.

I'm still weirded out by the channel thing. That'll be even freakier (and cooler) if those things end up all playing back game footage too. I betcha they do.

As for stat tracking... You're already buying stuff online, downloading stuff online. This console has none of your personal information. Your Mii name is NOT who you are, it's who you tell it you are. You don't even put a CC number into this thing. I think N's fine to collect my top score and compare it to others. It's gonna be sad that I won't even rank in the top 2000 of Donkey Kong players, but I can dream...

Oh, and what a miracle and curse it'll be for people to finally be able to try to do real speed runs in games and have it count to real bragging rights!

Under the Message Board you wrote "...and shares it will other users..." - instead of "...and shares it with other users.."

knowledge is power as Shao Tsung would say... and they are gonna gather a lot of it

Daver is Victorian Dad!

Daver:

Quit with your pretentious lecturing. Nobody here gives a shit about your pseudo-philosophical diatribes.

You're a wannabe intellectual, a piss-poor debater and a transparent concern troll. And if you don't like the so-called 'personal attacks' then perhaps you shouldn't post messages that berate the chosen form of entertainment for the entire group of people who visit here.

In other words, get a life and STFU.

not sure i like the cant be cleared part for the x rated games XD

This is just proof that Satoru Iwata is a Scientology member. Maybe one of the highest ranked ones.

I deny any allegations that we've even consider a Japanese person to be a level 600 thetan