Wii U FW Update Adds Account Transfer, Wii U Pro OS Support

*makes Rap Critic's unamused face*

Nintendo is still half assing everything i see. Oh well, even less of a reason to use my paperweight...er....gamepad....

Just playing :P

Okay, Jesus, there is so much misinformation and half-information in this thread.

Time to set the record right.

The first half of this post is directed at @Desmonic@nintendoboy16 and @locopatho:

• First things first. Your purchases are not linked to your hardware. Never. Ever. All your purchases are directly linked to your Nintendo Network account (and should you choose to do it, your Club Nintendo account), but the days when your purchases were actually linked to your hardware, such as on DS and Wii, those days are gone. Please stop saying that, it's inaccurate, misleading, and wrong.
• Having said that, Nintendo does lock your account itself to your hardware. You can't transfer accounts either without roundabout methods like these, or directly with the help of Customer Service. The consumer front end gets no account management options. but all of these options are there, they exist, only Nintendo is the only one who can access them. So you see, Nintendo isn't stuck in the stone ages. Far from it. They just want their consumers to be stuck in the stone ages, which is just as bad if not worse. But this is actually a very simple problem to solve, almost literally as simple as just flicking a switch and letting consumers manage their accounts on their own end. Even if Nintendo decides to only let one Wii U and one 3DS be associated with a Nintendo Network account at a time, that's fine and great, as long as we can decide which system to link the account with for ourselves, without necessarily having said systems on hand.
• Which brings me to the next part of this discussion, which was probably the dumbest thing I have heard said in a very long time: no, there is no 'hardware technology' that causes Nintendo's accounts to be the way they are. What the hell is this? How does one even get such an asinine idea? How the hell do you even create hardware to have accounts and data locked specifically to them? Is it like malleable foam, that shapes itself into a unique shape to accomodate only your system data, or something?
  Wii U and 3DS account issues are all software issues. As I said above, the issues don't even exist. The solutions are right there, they exist. Nintendo is just too stubborn to let users have access to these issues. And as to why saves are locked to hardware, that's a simple thing called encryption. Nintendo enabled it to prevent in game hacks (such as cheating in Mario Kart) or OS level hacks (such as the Twilight Princess hack, that opened the Wii up wide).

Oh, and finally:

• Nintendo never said 'unified accounts are not happening this gen.' Never. They in fact said they are starting to work towards a future where a user's primary identity within the Nintendo ecosystem is his or her Nintendo Network ID, and pointed to bringing NNIDs to 3DS as an example. They said they are working on it slowly; since the Wii U will be the base architecture for all Nintendo hardware (handheld or console) going forwards, it is extremely likely that we will see at least a proto-run of universal accounts this generation and not next generation.

-----------------------

Okay, second part of the post, directed at @osan0@MlauTheDaft:

What exactly is the PS4 lacking? A lot of features promised to us as far back as a year and a half ago, a lot of them promised for launch, and none of which have hit the PS4 yet. The PS4 is not only lagging behind the Xbox One in direct functionality, but also the PS3. Some missing features include:

• Suspend/Resume functionality (this was supposed to be there at launch)
• Local MP3 and DLNA support
• Support for custom backgrounds and wallpapers
• Support for folder and file management
• 3D Blu Ray playback support
• PS Vita data management support

Sony needs to get on it already. They promised a lot of features for the PS4- so far they haven't given us even one of them.

This combined with BC makes nintendo's drm far superior to other consoles.

So these are points which MS/Ninty have adressed, while Sony has not?

Also, I think you should remember where your goalposts are.

This is what you specifically wrote:

@Desmonic: I think you completely misunderstood the intent of my post. I am not defending Nintendo, I am still criticizing them. I am at the same time trying to ensure that there is no misinformation about this stuff.

Your purchases are tied to your account, same as PSN, XBL, Steam, iTunes, or Google Play. Your account happens to be locked to only one device at a time, and you can't change it. I already agreed, it's asinine and backwards. It's functionally the same thing, but there is a very important difference here- if there was no overarching account system, and the purchases were tied to hardware (like you said), then a true account system would be impossible to implement to the Wii U or 3DS. But that is not the case, a true account system and solution here exists (because the games are tied to the account, not the hardware), which is why it is in fact easy to implement a unified account solution for the player and consumer front end. But Nintendo won't do it, and that's shitty. The criticism here is not a lack of account features- those exist- but Nintendo's flat out anti consumer stance in making those available to the player. I am correcting your misconception, not defending Nintendo.

I already agreed that the current method of managing account transfers on Wii U ad 3DS is backwards and needlessly convoluted. You are preaching to the choir, bro :p

My third point was to address something extremely stupid nintendoboy said. There is no hardware level technology preventing Nintendo from implementing a proper account infrastructure into the 3DS and Wii U.

Once again, with encryption, you completely misunderstood the intent of why I said what I said. I was not defending Nintendo at all, only elaborating on why the saves are tied to the hardware (since Nintendoboy felt that them being tied to hardware was proof enough that there is some hardware level switch that ties games to your system).

@MlauTheDaft Nintendo has been addressing a lot of issues that are raised with its OS, which are, for good or for bad, separate from the ones raised for the PS4 and Xbox One OSs.

But yes, Xbox One at least has directly addressed several of those complaints that Sony still hasn't, including Suspend/Resume, local MP3 and DLNA support, and 3D Blu Ray support.

I fail to see what you meant with your 'goalposts' comment.

My purchases are linked to my account. My account is linked to my hardware. So, for me, my purchases are linked to my WiiU hardware and are gone if it breaks, pending some divine mercy from Nintendo. I don't give a shit about Nintendo's horrendous network/account/internal systems.

Appreciate the effort of the post though :) (Especially the hardware part. I didn't want to be mean but I didn't get what the hell that was about either :P)

And I'm annoyed at myself because I swore to buy nothing digitally on WiiU but caved when I was having a drunken party and everyone wanted to play Mario Kart, so I had to buy it... no shops open at 1am :P

Yes, I agree, functionally it's the same thing. I just need to make sure there is clarity on this issue because, as I said above, there is a very important difference here- if there was no overarching account system, and the purchases were tied to hardware (like you said), then a true account system would be impossible to implement to the Wii U or 3DS. But that is not the case, a true account system and solution here exists (because the games are tied to the account, not the hardware), which is why it is in fact easy to implement a unified account solution for the player and consumer front end. Of course, as I also said above, Nintendo will never do it because of their shockingly anti consumerist stance when it comes to digital games, so there is that.

And thanks lol. I just wanted to make sure everyone had the right reasons to criticize Nintendo (and there are many). And... the hardware part really sent me in a tizzy, I mean, what?

And haha... if it makes you feel any better, all my Wii U games are digital -_-

Is'nt the whole suspend/resume thing a matter of rethorics? I recall SolidTY commenting on the topic. I asked you to elaborate, not to recite PR.

I'm sure you're able to loosely outline the differences between the console's updates and functionality.

About goalposts... Well, let's not focus on that..

I've been able to use the OS with a Pro controller. Just not the Store.

@MlauTheDaft: Does the PS4 have any Suspend/Resume functionality? So far, I have not seen that. I don't know what SolidTy said, but Yoshida himself has apologized for the lack of PS4 missing functionality, including, yes, Suspend/Resume.

Said functionality was supposed to be introduced via updates, which, guess what, have not been made yet.

I'm really not sure what you are trying to say here.

So they get a quick start feature earlier this year and a WiiU account migration now which solves almost nothing on the consumer end, and TC wants to pretend Nintendo is "on the ball" on their updates. lolno, and talk about setting the bar low...

People wanted account migrations to ease fears of losing games to a malfunctioning or stolen console. This helps neither. Maybe use their save data at a friend's house? lolnope. Why would any customer try to smooth over such an unacceptable situation?

This isn't rocket science, and it's not even novel. Nintendo has plenty of industry examples to learn from, and have had years now to do it. Hell, I'll take a "stability improvement" any day over watching Nintendo's pathetically slow crawl towards the digital age.

As for Pro controller now moving the cursor in the OS,

... You're telling me it couldn't do that?

For almost TWO YEARS?!?

Holy crap, you're serious???

smh

This whole thread =

Well, now you can do that too!

What are your thoughts on the Pro Controller, btw?

@santoron said:

So they get a quick start feature earlier this year and a WiiU account migration now which solves almost nothing on the consumer end, and TC wants to pretend Nintendo is "on the ball" on their updates. lolno, and talk about setting the bar low...

People wanted account migrations to ease fears of losing games to a malfunctioning or stolen console. This helps neither. Why would any customer try to smooth over such an unacceptable situation? This isn't rocket science, and it's not even novel. Nintendo has plenty of industry examples to learn from, and have had years now to do it. Hell, I'll take a "stability improvement" any day over watching Nintendo's pathetically slow crawl towards the digital age.

As for Pro controller now moving the cursor in the OS?

... You're telling me it couldn't do that?

For almost TWO YEARS?!? smh

This whole thread =

Once again, you have misunderstood the intent of this thread. I've been criticizing Nintendo all this while, while also making sure misinformation is dispelled. One does not preclude the other.

I misunderstood?

....

You described this as "an excellent update" in the OP, and then decided to jump the shark with:

This apparently is your version of being critical?

Perhaps critical of Nintendo, anyhow. We all know you can do better when referencing certain other platform makers...

@santoron: Your mistake is in conflating commending Nintendo for releasing firmware updates with the actual content of these updates.

I can commend Nintendo for releasing lots of major updates for the Wii U in a short amount of time, that are feature rich and demonstrate they are listening- which I did- and I can criticize them for still missing the point with a lot of their new features- which I also did in at least three massive posts on this very thread that you seem to have completely missed for some reason.

Once again- and I'm surprised at how often a concept as basic as this has to be repeated on this board- one does not preclude the other. You can commend them for something they do right, and criticize them for what they do not.

Also, please don't resort to passive aggressive allegations of implied fanboyism, we both know you are much better than that.

Alternate universe where EA treats their customers right, Mafia 2 turned out to become a masterpiece, and Freedomfreak is the undisputed ruler of the world.

Well, it's definitely the more comfortable option for retro games and stuff like Mario Kart. The battery life is fucking amazingly good, too!

Looks like we have a big difference of opinion on what constitutes a major update or a short amount of time. I see neither from Nintendo. And if you're finding yourself criticizing them for missing the point with these updates, then why commend them at all? I simply see nothing here praiseworthy.

As for my "allegations", oh come now.

Sony releases FW 1.7 with: USB drive saves, Sharefactory video editor, Video error reporting direct to Sony, HDCP selector, Pre Downloads, DS4 dimming (lol), system stability, ect.

You say, "Sony won't release a proper update, even now."

Nintendo releases FW with: WiiU to WiiU account transfers (which is nearly worthless), the ability to use system controllers with the operating system, and system stability/usability improvements.

You say, "An excellent update", and "Nintendo (has) been so on the ball with their FW updates."

I dunno, maybe you meant this whole thread as a sarcastic thrashing of Nintendo and I missed it? Otherwise, it's not declaring you a fanboy (in the SW sense, anyhow) by showing you appear to have some very different standards depending on who makes the hardware (and FWIW I don't consider you as such). But I think it's worth pointing out. No gimmees in SW. :P