You guys spoke loud and clear yesterday. Our email was busting with messages from readers concerning the voice chat in Mario Kart Wii. The emails didn’t just offer up the news, but instead, you also included your two cents on the situation. To no surprise, almost all of you were pretty enraged with the information. Some emails were filled with such anger that I can’t even repeat the things that were said! Just incase you missed out on the news, let me give you a quick update. Mario Kart Wii was said to include text chat. The problem is, Nintendo refrained from telling us that the text chat wasn’t going to be open-ended. You’re going to have to work with preset text bubbles, just like the ones you use in Endless Ocean. Once again, Nintendo’s defense force locks us down from communicating with our friends, as well as strangers. This leaves me with one question for Nintendo. Why even bother with text chat at all?
First thing’s first…and I am sure a good amount of you thought of this as well. Isn’t it a bit sad that we were so excited for text chat in the first place? The year is 2008, and we were getting giddy over the thought of typing out messages to friends/rivals on Mario Kart Wii. Isn’t text messaging something we’ve been doing for years now? I don’t think the idea of texting back and forth is all that revolutionary. The sad thing is, when it comes to Nintendo platforms, this is usually how the evolution of online ideas comes about. While game development is top-notch, the online aspects are severely lagging. I am not even all that into online gaming, but when we do get that pleasure with a Nintendo title, it makes it that much worse when the features are gimped. The sad fact is, Nintendo hardly ever throws us a bone with online. That’s why we all cheer when they give us something more than their last offering. I mean, would it really be fun to point/toggle type with other players during race setups?
