Nintendork Posted March 5, 2006 Posted March 5, 2006 You heard it right, n-sider is pushing a really deep article into why a partnership between AOL and Revolution could do for Revolution's market success. Let me provide a hypothetical scenario. Let's fast forward in time. We're going to Los Angeles, in the month of May. it's E3 2006, and Revolution is on the main stage. Satoru Iwata has just amazed fans with in-game footage of Mario Revolution, Super Smash Brothers Revolution, and Metroid Prime 3. Just as the excitement is ready to die down, Iwata-san says in semi-broken English, "I have one more thing to show you." He holds his Revolution controller, and accesses "Nintendo Online." He logs on under "SIwata" and as he comes on, a window appears, along with a sound we are very familiar with. It's the AOL Instant Messenger "ding" sound -- the one that sounds when someone sends you a message. A window asks if you would like to accept a message from the user "SMiyamoto." Iwata says yes, and he is greeted with the message, "Would you like to play a game?" Using the new Microphone add-on, he says "Sure," which displays the text, using the new voice recognition technology. Suddenly, a window pops saying, "SMiyamoto Wishes to Play (blank)," and soon, the two are engaged in an online game, reminiscent of minigames one might see on Pogo or MSN. Soon, a curtain is raised, revealing Shigeru Miyamoto, playing on a computer, rather than a Revolution. That's just a small section, the article is really deep and opens with an almost philosophical attitude to business partnerships. I think it's great.. as the article points out, the market of possible Revolution candidates fits AOL's userbase near perfectly.. AOL is a simple service, and probably one of the cheapest.. it's marketted at those who are slightly worried about the safety of the internet. But adventurous enough to take the plunge into the online world. People who would almost definitely be willing to try Revolution out. Knowing that Xbox and Sony are doing their own thing and their relationships with ISPs like BT and AOL have been pretty piss poor over the last 3 years with current generation consoles this could mean great news for Nintendo and AOL. With such an intensely large demographic users in America, a modest set in Europe though it should be noted MSN is the messenger of choice in Europe.. and the home bases covered in Japan, I ask you.. how can Nintendo wifi fail? Chances are.. this would be an exclusive service to AOL customers.. they wont get xbox 360 or PS3 support as well. I am reasonably happy with AOL broadband.. they're relatively cheap and have free tech support based in Scotland (not India.. no offense but it's tech support) N-Sider [via 4cr]
Demuwan Posted March 5, 2006 Posted March 5, 2006 Just to get this straight. What youre trying to say is Nintendo have just made a massive partnership with AOL. If this is true well. NWC is really gonna be a revolution. E3 where are you.
Nintendork Posted March 5, 2006 Author Posted March 5, 2006 Well no, perhaps I was a little creative with my wording but you're right.. this is more of a what Nintendo could be thinking. After all... we've all been looking at Revolution being something hardware.. 3D projectors, ONnintendo and other such nonsenses. Perhaps we're barking up the wrong tree and it could be something like this.
Charlie Posted March 5, 2006 Posted March 5, 2006 Why speech-to-text? Why not just speech like they're doing in Metroid..
Nintendork Posted March 5, 2006 Author Posted March 5, 2006 Stop mass racism found on live? I think this may be something covered by Nintendo's parental controls.. you may only be able to speak and be spoken to if you're over 18 say. Or they may just say text chat only.. I'd prefer voice chat, so much more reliable. Plus the processing power is there. If they wanna move away from friend codes which are annoying there needs to be protection.
Demuwan Posted March 5, 2006 Posted March 5, 2006 Stop mass racism found on live? I don't have an XBOX but I have noticed that some XBOX live players and other networks. Are actually more abusive because of this. I think thsi is very sad and If Like you said there is mass racism on Live then I definitly back Nintendo 100%. People like that should be able to be banned from playing they just spoil the fun for the rest of us.
DCK Posted March 5, 2006 Posted March 5, 2006 If the problem is big then yes, Nintendo are right. They could ban all Revolutions and DSes on which racism or other nasty stuff is sent out.
Nintendork Posted March 5, 2006 Author Posted March 5, 2006 Moderation of this nature is pretty expensive though.. by having a functional (for all languages) voice to text chat feature they could simply block out those nasty words. Much of xbox live's revenue goes on support staff and moderators. Part of the reason why it struggled to break ever until a few years into the project.
BlueStar Posted March 5, 2006 Posted March 5, 2006 Voice recognition would have to be very simplistic. Only certain words recognised "sure", "medic", "go" or whatever. There's no way you could just pick up a revolution and start talking into it to tell someone what you had for tea and what game you want to play with them throught speech to text. Unless you want to talk like a robot and sit reading half of Alice in Wonderland into it for hours when you first get it, and then constantly correcting and updating it for your voice for years like I have to at work. "Who once two eight four sew men he daze" to talk to people on revolution like that when it wont be accurate anyway?
Charlie Posted March 5, 2006 Posted March 5, 2006 Stop mass racism found on live?I think this may be something covered by Nintendo's parental controls.. you may only be able to speak and be spoken to if you're over 18 say. Or they may just say text chat only.. I'd prefer voice chat, so much more reliable. Plus the processing power is there. If they wanna move away from friend codes which are annoying there needs to be protection. Do you have or have ever even used Xbox Live? There's very little racism on it actually, you get the occaisional person saying "nigger" after everything but apart from that most people are really cool.
knightendo Posted March 5, 2006 Posted March 5, 2006 nintendo have spent a fortune setting up nintendo WFC, it's been a roaring success to eclipse xbox live (given the time period) and have made partnerships with opera and others. can't see then chucking all that in the bin to partner with AOL, if that's what you mean. i for one hope they aren't thinking of this, nintendo wana revolutionize online play, why use someone else's already-established software?
AshMat Posted March 5, 2006 Posted March 5, 2006 IF AOL keep the "Some people think the internet is bad" adverts, then it'll be a bad thing.
Demuwan Posted March 5, 2006 Posted March 5, 2006 Do you have or have ever even used Xbox Live? There's very little racism on it actually, you get the occaisional person saying "nigger" after everything but apart from that most people are really cool. I still think that the occasional use of rascism or any type of abuse is totally unacceptable we get too much of this out there in the 'real world'. For that reason Im glad MPH is just friends in the lobby. Nintendo are definitly making NWC a better place.
Jamba Posted March 5, 2006 Posted March 5, 2006 It could be as simple as advertising the Rev or DS on AOL. Don't get all excited. Also if Nintendo do do some kind of software with AOL then I am actually quite worried. I find their programs slow and very unfriendly to people who are more of a "power user". It would really be a blue ocean move. It could also be to do with making the WFC a bit more useable through AOL which would always be good.
Nintendork Posted March 5, 2006 Author Posted March 5, 2006 Jamba, if you read it you'd know that it is all hypothetical.. it's just an idea someone had written for a piece because there is such a lack of news about Revolution. There's another 2 or 3 of these articles coming in the coming weeks.
Jamba Posted March 5, 2006 Posted March 5, 2006 Yeah and I'm poo pooing that hypothesis. I don't like AOL and I don't see any association between the two companies on a software collaboration level as being a good move. I'm just commenting on the scenario.
Nintendork Posted March 5, 2006 Author Posted March 5, 2006 Yeah fair enough, Reggie has contacts with Pizza Hut though, he used to be head of marketing there.. Perhaps he will add the order pizza function into the Revolution. I enjoyed the article.. while being farfetched, it's a nice concept. I'm looking forward to the next installments.
LazyBoy Posted March 5, 2006 Posted March 5, 2006 I actually like the friend codes system. I would be perfectly happy if the Revolution saw a similar online system to the DSs, and voice chat was reserved exclusivly for use between 'friends'. I have no interest in talking to complete strangers, either by text or voice. Though I do like the idea of being able to chat before with a friend and then ging into a game, it would just be a lot more convienient.
ndreamer Posted March 6, 2006 Posted March 6, 2006 yeah epecialy with voice chat i think a friends system is the only way to go unless the revolution has some sort of user profile thing built in where perants can set up accounts for every one in the family that turn voice chat and text chat off while there kids, friends ect are on those types of games.
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