Letterbox killed by Nintendo?

[Rummy]

So I've just come across this article at Kotaku which apparently details a message from Nintendo announcing the deactivation of the Letterbox spotpass features;

 

Notice about service for Nintendo 3DS software Swapnote

 

Thank you for your support.

 

Nintendo has learned that some consumers, including minors, have been exchanging their friend codes on Internet bulletin boards and then using Swapnote (known as Nintendo Letter Box in other regions) to exchange offensive material. Nintendo has been investigating ways of preventing this and determined it is best to stop the SpotPass feature of Swapnote because it allows direct exchange of photos and was actively misused.

 

Nintendo always wants to provide a positive experience for all consumers and limit the risk of any inappropriate activity or misuse of a service. We feel it is important on this occasion to take this action.

 

We are very sorry for any inconvenience to the many consumers who have been using this service responsibly; however this decision was made considering the point that many minors also use this feature of Swapnote. Thank you for your understanding.

 

Nintendo will continue to work to ensure more consumers are aware of our Parental Control features, which allow parents to manage their children's experience on our systems. For more information, please click here.

 

Service stop date: Thursday, Oct. 31, 2013, 7 p.m. PT

 

Service being stopped: Nintendo 3DS software Swapnote – Sending and receiving notes using SpotPass

 

Affected regions: All regions where the service was offered

 

Special Notes services are also stopped

 

Personally it doesn't affect me as I don't use Letterbox(some of its workings put me off a bit) but for those that did it's a bit of a huge hit.

 

What are people's thoughts on this?

Edited November 1, 2013 by Rummy

[Dcubed]

Whoa! Talk about out of the blue! Must've been something pretty serious to spark this off (probably child porn was found being sent as an embedded image in some messages).

 

They invested quite a bit into that little app. Lots of regular updates and it was a popular PR tool for Nintendo in promoting their games (hell, they just sent out a Nikki (MAI WAIFU! NOOOOOOOO!!!) message only just last week!

 

Swapnote.nintendo.com lists the service as "suspended" rather than terminated/cancelled, so I reckon that they're working on a retooled version to remove the image embedding feature as long as my little Nikki gets to keep her job, I'm happy

[Rummy]

Question mark needs dropping, just seen the message on my own 3DS listing the service being suspended at 2am this morning. Did you use it much on the regular @Dcubed?

[RedShell]

I used to love Letterbox, it's actually one of the top played titles on my 3DS! But people gradually stopped using it, and when Miiverse came out that was the final nail in the coffin.

 

Was still a nice little app though, so it's a shame if they get rid of it.

Mind you, once (if) Miiverse is available on 3DS, I doubt many will be too bothered.

[Dcubed]

I did. Even with Miiverse, it was still a cute and fun way of sending silly messages and animal crossing pics

[Guy]

Letterbox is slow and polluted with crap. Hopefully this will advance the delivery of Miiverse on 3DS.

[Debug Mode]

It was a mess of a piece of software, but quite a lot of people enjoyed it so it's really a shame. It was the spiritual successor to Pictochat, something not a lot of people look back to because it required people actively using it locally..

 

Miiverse will lessen the pain, but is there a decent private messaging service? I know Nintendo wants to maintain the family friendly image and disabling sending photographs is probably a good idea, but so what if people want to draw mature content and share it with their friends? Like c'mon, you can't exactly expect parents to look over their kids activity constantly to ensure they don't go adding the wrong people on forums, but you shouldn't censor private communications between two individuals who know what they're doing.

[dazzybee]

Hang on. So it's stopped NOW?!

 

I think the software's was a great IDEA, but like many of nintendo's great ideas, they ruined it with peer execution. The fact it downloaded all the letters in the background, and then you STILL had to download them when you opened it was awful. The fact you couldn't have conversations. The fact it was instant or multitasking. Just terrible really.

 

Can't believe Nintendo have just pulled the plug. Must mean MiiVerse isn't too far away.

[Dog-amoto]

Oh great! I was just in the middl

[Debug Mode]

Can't believe Nintendo have just pulled the plug. Must mean MiiVerse isn't too far away.

 

Watch it be 2 years down the line and read only or some shit.

[Agent Gibbs]

What? i only updated my messages yesterday? recent engrossing games have meant i've not used it much (as ive had suspended games all the time) but it was awesome, the messages from Anoma and Iwata etc were always so awesome!

 

god damn Miiverse for the 3DS best arrive soon

[M_rock]

But it's the only way 3DS users can communicate with each other outside of software! I used this weekly, it was such a charming application! Let's hope they fix it soon!

[Fused King]

 

Used it quite a lot, but I sort of got more into playing a quick game on my 3DS than sending someone a letter as tiem went on.

The beginning was a blast though, but, as others have said, it should probably make way for MiiVerse.

[Serebii]

We all know who is the cause of this, @ReZourceman :p

[Sheikah]

I liked this, it's a shame that Nintendo won't shed their kiddy image still (they could even put this behind parental controls so it'd be entirely the parents' fault if a kid sees wangs everywhere).

 

Although it was another of those weird apps of theirs that took stupidly long between clicking things (like send/receive). They really need to work on their UI for everything.

[Tamazoid]

I liked this, it's a shame that Nintendo won't shed their kiddy image still (they could even put this behind parental controls so it'd be entirely the parents' fault if a kid sees wangs everywhere).

 

Although it was another of those weird apps of theirs that took stupidly long between clicking things (like send/receive). They really need to work on their UI for everything.

 

This has nothing to do with their 'kiddy image'. If it was underage users sending pornographic images of themselves that's illegal.

[Sheikah]

This has nothing to do with their 'kiddy image'. If it was underage users sending pornographic images of themselves that's illegal.

 

It has everything to do with it. Anyone can send such images already over PSN already (even real photographs).

 

Sony's solution is to ban the users and not the service.

[david.dakota]

I'm guilty too; I slipped some cock in.

 

Hopefully they can quickly replace this with Miiverse - moderated and nearly clean.

[Grazza]

It's strange how this has happened now rather than when it was more popular. We used it for years with no trouble, although I must admit I was always surprised that you could attach any photo you wanted. Not meaning to sound elitist, but I wonder if the 2DS and Pokémon have brought in a new audience that has generated this problem? Big success brings in a huge new market.

[Cube]

This has nothing to do with their 'kiddy image'. If it was underage users sending pornographic images of themselves that's illegal.

 

Then shouldn't we shut down MMS messages, the internet and the postal service?

[f00had]

A few of my 3DS friends would send nice letters and it was always fun reading them so it's sad that I won't be receiving any more letters from them Hopefully we get Miiverse soon, or better yet a messaging system that you can access in games like on Xbox and PS3

[Jimbob]

See, idiots ruin peoples fun. Not that it bothered me too much, i stopped using Letterbox a while ago and many friends certainly have as well. Used to get constant letters arriving weekly, but hardly get any now. Still, i hope this brings Miiverse 1 step closer to the 3DS.

 

Which reminds me.........

[Iun]

I stopped using Swapnote a while ago because I found it unusable - I never knew if people got my notes, and my friends would always just send off random discussions about bollocks that I wasn't interested in. The execution of the whole thing was poor.

 

Anyway, I think Nintendo did right to shut it down: it was a free service that some idiots were abusing. If you don't treat something well and with respect, you really just don't deserve to have it. And though a majority probably used the service properly, there's no sense in risking the company's reputation.

[Wii]

Here's why Nintendo halted Swapnote services

 

We knew that there were some lewd acts involved with Swapnote, but Nintendo wasn't letting on what exactly caused them to shut down the service. Now we have details from Japanese publications.

 

- two men have been arrested

- they were alledgedly performing "improper acts" in hotel rooms with a 12 year-old girl

- this happened multiple times

- the men are aged 49 and 36

- this was facilitated through the 3DS

- child pornography charges have also been filed against another man, 44

- he allegedly had an 11 and 12 year old girls send him nude pictures through Swapnote

- other men have been charged with statutory rape and indecency through compulsion

 

http://gonintendo.com/?mode=viewstory&id=216348

[Helmsly]

holy crap that's terrible