** Official Mario Kart Wii ** Thread

[Modeps]

Yesterday, Kotaku was reporting that there would be "text chat" in Mario Kart Wii. Today, Nintendo says otherwise.

http://www.destructoid.com/oh-...t-support--72657.phtml

lright, so remember how I said that Mario Kart for the Wii will support text chatting? Well I was completely wrong. Or rather, Nintendo has no idea what the hell texting means. Here's the deal, Mario Kart will only support pre-determined phrases that people can send to each other, which Nintendo will provide. So phrases like "Hello", "Lets race!" and "Lets have fun!" are some of the things that are safe to assume will be available.

Thank God you're here to protect us Nintendo! I was really worried you were slipping. Thank you so much for babysitting the fan base and keeping them safe from the pedophiles and creeps of the Internet. If you're mad about this, than you're obviously one of the evil people. No doubt that you want to send children messages like "Your tears turn me on." and "I have a lollipop in my pants for you." You people make me sick.

UPDATE 3/6

Ok, now this sounds cool. Kart will come with a new Channel on the disc. One that lets you do all sort of things including register new Kart friends, view leaderboards, and *gasp* see which of your friends are online :Q

http://www.nintendowiifanboy.c...t-wii-and-its-channel/

We didn't really expect Mario Kart Wii to have much in common with Wii Fit other than sales, but that's the approach Nintendo is taking with the kart racer's online features. Nintendo previously announced that Mario Kart Wii will use a "Mario Kart Channel" that, like the Wii Fit Channel, stays accessible from the Wii Menu even when the disc is not in the drive. You can use this Channel to view and download ghost data of other players and race against them (presumably you'll need the disc for the racing parts). Nintendo has released additional information about this Channel which reveals just how useful and smart their detached Channels can be.

The Channel lets you register friends and check their online status (awesome), look at rankings, and view the current Competition. What's a Competition? "Nintendo will on a regular basis invite players to speedy challenges similar to the Missions of Mario Kart DS." It kind of sounds like Nintendo is actually encouraging online play for once.

UPDATE 3/13

Release date confirmed for April 27th, Just two days before GTA4.

http://kotaku.com/366762/mario...ii-hits-us-on-april-27

 

[TecHNooB]

That's good. I don't want nintendo's image to be tarnished.

 

[Xavier434]

Originally posted by: TecHNooB
That's good. I don't want nintendo's image to be tarnished.

Considering the garbage I see in both text and voice (Halo 3 is a fine example) I am kind of glad they are making this decision as well. I want Nintendo to continue to feel like Nintendo.

 

[CKDragon]

Originally posted by: Xavier434

Originally posted by: TecHNooB
That's good. I don't want nintendo's image to be tarnished.

Considering the garbage I see in both text and voice (Halo 3 is a fine example) I am kind of glad they are making this decision as well. I want Nintendo to continue to feel like Nintendo.

Yea, but I'd still prefer the option to talk to family and friends as we play. This is one of the few games I can get my dad (who lives 3 hours away) to play so it would have been nice to have voice chat.

 

[Xavier434]

Originally posted by: CKDragon

Originally posted by: Xavier434

Originally posted by: TecHNooB
That's good. I don't want nintendo's image to be tarnished.

Considering the garbage I see in both text and voice (Halo 3 is a fine example) I am kind of glad they are making this decision as well. I want Nintendo to continue to feel like Nintendo.

Yea, but I'd still prefer the option to talk to family and friends as we play. This is one of the few games I can get my dad (who lives 3 hours away) to play so it would have been nice to have voice chat.

I really have not kept up with Nintendo very much when it comes to what they plan to offer in terms of online play. Do they even have a VoIP setup for their servers? I was under the impression that the technology needed for that is very expensive to purchase/develop. They never really marketed the Wii as being an online gaming machine so perhaps they felt it wouldn't have been worth the money.

Regardless, I like options too as long as I have the ability to toggle them.

 

[erwos]

Originally posted by: CKDragon
Yea, but I'd still prefer the option to talk to family and friends as we play. This is one of the few games I can get my dad (who lives 3 hours away) to play so it would have been nice to have voice chat.

Same thing with me. I definitely could see my wife and I playing against my father and sister using the online support, and voice chat would be quite handy. Even "real" text chat would be good enough.

Speaking of which, where's my Bluetooth keyboard support?

 

[Modeps]

Originally posted by: Xavier434
They never really marketed the Wii as being an online gaming machine so perhaps they felt it wouldn't have been worth the money.

Before the Wii came out, they were talking up WiiConnect 24/7 like nobody's business... and what it's become is basically just a way to deliver old video games to users and mess around with some very small web interactions... at least its got a browser though... one that I never use.

 

[CKDragon]

Originally posted by: Xavier434
I really have not kept up with Nintendo very much when it comes to what they plan to offer in terms of online play. Do they even have a VoIP setup for their servers? I was under the impression that the technology needed for that is very expensive to purchase/develop.

(Warning, big technical terms coming )

I'm pretty sure the Wii online is going to be peer-to-peer, just like Xbox Live. If that's the case, why would they need a special VoIP setup when data's going to be flying back and forth for the game anyway?

 

[BD2003]

Originally posted by: CKDragon

Originally posted by: Xavier434

Originally posted by: TecHNooB
That's good. I don't want nintendo's image to be tarnished.

Considering the garbage I see in both text and voice (Halo 3 is a fine example) I am kind of glad they are making this decision as well. I want Nintendo to continue to feel like Nintendo.

Yea, but I'd still prefer the option to talk to family and friends as we play. This is one of the few games I can get my dad (who lives 3 hours away) to play so it would have been nice to have voice chat.

Exactly. I could care less if they disabled talk with random people, in fact, that would probably be a most excellent thing. But at least let me talk to my friends that I took the time to register the stupid 16-digit per-game friend code with.

 

[Xavier434]

Originally posted by: CKDragon

Originally posted by: Xavier434
I really have not kept up with Nintendo very much when it comes to what they plan to offer in terms of online play. Do they even have a VoIP setup for their servers? I was under the impression that the technology needed for that is very expensive to purchase/develop.

(Warning, big technical terms coming )

I'm pretty sure the Wii online is going to be peer-to-peer, just like Xbox Live. If that's the case, why would they need a special VoIP setup when data's going to be flying back and forth for the game anyway?

Honestly, I do not know enough about it to answer that question. All I know is that the protocols for data over IP is different than voice over IP. This really boils down to how easy it is to add the software and hardware necessary to make it happen. If they are required to develop something custom to be compatible with the Wii then that is a huge design decision to make and an expensive once. I don't believe that just being P2P is enough to satisfy the requirement but I could be wrong.

Originally posted by: Modeps
Before the Wii came out, they were talking up WiiConnect 24/7 like nobody's business... and what it's become is basically just a way to deliver old video games to users and mess around with some very small web interactions... at least its got a browser though... one that I never use.

Nintendo never left me with the impression that they would be centering around a lot of online play even with all the talk about WiiConnect. What they are delivering in terms of online features is pretty much what I expected.

 

[erwos]

Originally posted by: Xavier434
Honestly, I do not know enough about it to answer that question. All I know is that the protocols for data over IP is different than voice over IP.

No, it's not. It's all TCP/IP (unless it's UDP). Voice gets translated to data, data gets streamed. There are QoS issues, but these apply to all packets.

IMHO, the real issue here is that there's no Bluetooth keyboard or headset support on the Wii. You can't really have chat without those - unless you plan on using a USB keyboard with your wireless Wiimote, which seems weird.

 

[MmmSkyscraper]

Unless I'm playing with friends, I have no interest in VOIP or chat messages.

 

[CKDragon]

Originally posted by: MmmSkyscraper
Unless I'm playing with friends, I have no interest in VOIP or chat messages.

Yea, but who doesn't play Mario Kart with friends?

 

[Modeps]

Originally posted by: MmmSkyscraper
Unless I'm playing with friends, I have no interest in VOIP or chat messages.

I'd say that 80% of my online 360 gaming is done with friends... and the 20% that isnt, I still want to talk to people due to the fact that team games need communication between people. If someone is annoying, they are muted. It's pretty simple.

 

[oznerol]

Originally posted by: CKDragon

Originally posted by: MmmSkyscraper
Unless I'm playing with friends, I have no interest in VOIP or chat messages.

Yea, but who doesn't play Mario Kart with friends?

People with no friends?

And/or people who don't have their friends' 42 digit friend code.

 

[Xavier434]

Originally posted by: erwos

Originally posted by: Xavier434
Honestly, I do not know enough about it to answer that question. All I know is that the protocols for data over IP is different than voice over IP.

No, it's not. It's all TCP/IP (unless it's UDP). Voice gets translated to data, data gets streamed. There are QoS issues, but these apply to all packets.

IMHO, the real issue here is that there's no Bluetooth keyboard or headset support on the Wii. You can't really have chat without those - unless you plan on using a USB keyboard with your wireless Wiimote, which seems weird.

You may know more about it than I do. My experience with this issue is limited to when I worked for a satellite technology company as a QA tester. I remember there being a ton of issues when the engineers were trying to include VOIP in addition to data. Whatever it is that they needed to do, I know it was anything but easy. They had lots of issues making sure that the packets were being transferred correctly and arriving in the proper order. I thought it had to do with the protocol, but even if I am wrong there is definitely something which makes it very different from transferring data.

 

[purbeast0]

lol @ people saying this is a good "feature" that nintendo decided to have.

 

[pennylane]

Originally posted by: purbeast0
lol @ people saying this is a good "feature" that nintendo decided to have.

Ohh you horrible person! Will SOMEONE please think of the children?!!

 

[Xavier434]

Originally posted by: fanerman91

Originally posted by: purbeast0
lol @ people saying this is a good "feature" that nintendo decided to have.

Ohh you horrible person! Will SOMEONE please think of the children?!!

It is easy to say that if you do not have kids and have not faced situations where you are torn because you want your kid to be able to play a game, but the only thing which is making it unacceptable is all of the trash coming out of the mouths from other players. I don't mind the option of such communication to exist, but it's really nice to be able to control what your 5 or 6 year old is exposed to. A lot of this technology does not allow parents to have control over these situations very well. I wouldn't expect anyone without kids to understand that.

 

[oznerol]

Originally posted by: Xavier434

Originally posted by: fanerman91

Originally posted by: purbeast0
lol @ people saying this is a good "feature" that nintendo decided to have.

Ohh you horrible person! Will SOMEONE please think of the children?!!

It is easy to say that if you do not have kids and have not faced situations where you are torn because you want your kid to be able to play a game, but the only thing which is making it unacceptable is all of the trash coming out of the mouths from other players. I don't mind the option of such communication to exist, but it's really nice to be able to control what your 5 or 6 year old is exposed to. A lot of this technology does not allow parents to have control over these situations very well. I wouldn't expect anyone without kids to understand that.

Oh, you mean like Xbox Live having child accounts and allowing parents to set voice chat to friends only or off altogether?

 

[purbeast0]

Originally posted by: ducci

Originally posted by: Xavier434

Originally posted by: fanerman91

Originally posted by: purbeast0
lol @ people saying this is a good "feature" that nintendo decided to have.

Ohh you horrible person! Will SOMEONE please think of the children?!!

It is easy to say that if you do not have kids and have not faced situations where you are torn because you want your kid to be able to play a game, but the only thing which is making it unacceptable is all of the trash coming out of the mouths from other players. I don't mind the option of such communication to exist, but it's really nice to be able to control what your 5 or 6 year old is exposed to. A lot of this technology does not allow parents to have control over these situations very well. I wouldn't expect anyone without kids to understand that.

Oh, you mean like Xbox Live having child accounts and allowing parents to set voice chat to friends only or off altogether?

doh you beat me!

 

[Slew Foot]

I have about 0 interest in talking to random 8 year olds calling me a i love you or whatever, but I would appreciate talking to my friends.

 

[Queasy]

Originally posted by: Slew Foot
I have about 0 interest in talking to random 8 year olds calling me a i love you or whatever, but I would appreciate talking to my friends.

And this still doesn't guarantee an absence of douchebaggery from other players. My very first online game of Super Mario Kart DS was against a player named "Super Nazi". So yeah, douchebags will find ways to be douchebags even if they can't speak or send text messages.

As an example, judging by the new system, I'm sure there will be lots of "pre-determined phrase" spamming.

Who knows though. Maybe Nintendo's system just won't support voice chat. I'd still prefer a system where parents and players had the option.

 

[Xavier434]

Originally posted by: ducci

Originally posted by: Xavier434

Originally posted by: fanerman91

Originally posted by: purbeast0
lol @ people saying this is a good "feature" that nintendo decided to have.

Ohh you horrible person! Will SOMEONE please think of the children?!!

It is easy to say that if you do not have kids and have not faced situations where you are torn because you want your kid to be able to play a game, but the only thing which is making it unacceptable is all of the trash coming out of the mouths from other players. I don't mind the option of such communication to exist, but it's really nice to be able to control what your 5 or 6 year old is exposed to. A lot of this technology does not allow parents to have control over these situations very well. I wouldn't expect anyone without kids to understand that.

Oh, you mean like Xbox Live having child accounts and allowing parents to set voice chat to friends only or off altogether?

Exactly. I would want that same type of thing for the Wii.

 

[pennylane]

Originally posted by: Xavier434

Originally posted by: ducci

Originally posted by: Xavier434

Originally posted by: fanerman91

Originally posted by: purbeast0
lol @ people saying this is a good "feature" that nintendo decided to have.

Ohh you horrible person! Will SOMEONE please think of the children?!!

It is easy to say that if you do not have kids and have not faced situations where you are torn because you want your kid to be able to play a game, but the only thing which is making it unacceptable is all of the trash coming out of the mouths from other players. I don't mind the option of such communication to exist, but it's really nice to be able to control what your 5 or 6 year old is exposed to. A lot of this technology does not allow parents to have control over these situations very well. I wouldn't expect anyone without kids to understand that.

Oh, you mean like Xbox Live having child accounts and allowing parents to set voice chat to friends only or off altogether?

Exactly. I would want that same type of thing for the Wii.

Given all the other posts before mine talking about Xbox Live's voice chat control features, I thought it was obvious that I was alluding to the fact that we CAN have voice chat AND child safety at the SAME time.

I perfectly understand that it's important to be able to limit content for kids, even though I don't have any. I'm not thaaaat oblivious to things.