Nintendo Kills SwapNote

[smedis2]

Meh, I preferred Flipnote over SwapNote anyways.

[Viiper]

Wow, big surprise here. Nintendo, kings of the stone age and everything old fashion took out the one feature that actually allowed for some pretty decent connection.

This is why I can hardly stand Nintendo these days. Nintendo will NEVER stop catering to just kids like this.

Honestly, I don't think anyone really cares.

GIANT PROJECTION. Stop that.

[Neweegee]

Nintendo will NEVER stop catering to just kids like this.

Actually, it was for the best.

[Gwen]

Nintendo will NEVER stop catering to just kids like this.

Actually, it was for the best.

Shit tons of social platforms are used by child predators, that's a really lame point.

[Gors]

maybe the problem is that this one is related to nintendo and knowing that a nintendo app (which is really child and family-friendly) caused such shit would really stain its reputation.

i am not really sure if that was the best action and it sucks that the service was stopped. but fuck, the world is filled with a bunch of sick fucks

[Sengir]

Nintendo is overreacting, they should leave the parenting to the parents in my opinion.

I hate when people use this type of argument, then later turn around and espouse the idea that children have some set of rights. It's almost impossible to be a parent to a teenager (speaking as someone who was a stubborn asshole teenager). Just think about what a 16-year old's reaction would be to having parental controls on their 3DS they bought with money from their own newspaper route or whatever. I'd be livid.

Not to mention some parents don't even care and let their kids do whatever they want.

[Koopaul]

Well then, those are bad parents letting their kids do whatever they want.

[Kriven]

Yeah, not seeing the "Parents don't care so Wii should" argument.

[Sengir]

Well then, those are bad parents letting their kids do whatever they want.

And the kids should be the victim of that? Sure; they might be bad parents, but the kids don't deserve to be lured and raped because of their parents' neglect!

[Koh]

Well, although this child predator thing has happened a few times, I still don't think it's a justifiable reason to shut the whole thing down, because those are pick and choose cases out of the hundreds of thousands of users. I mean, combined with the other possible reasons, yes, but standalone, definitely not. If it were a valid reason, why are Facebook and other social networking sites still around?

To those who've used the app, it was probably a neat little something to toy with, but at the end of the day, is it really all that cumbersome to not have it? I'm seeing random rages here and there across the internet about them turning it off, but really, it's not the only program to do this. If you absolutely MUST send random notes with pictures to people...there exists email for that.

[Marth]

Facebook is not geared towards children. It is a social media site for young adults/adults (yes teenagers are adults). It also has many practical business uses as well, and in some aspects can be utilized by teachers/professors to better contact their students or form a discussion board for them. It's not really something with family in mind, it's a social interaction tool. While Nintendo is very family oriented and commonplace in the home atmosphere. So common that parents and grandparents alike for decades now have called all video games "nintendo" as in "get off your nintendo bobby, dinner is ready".

Nintendo is first and foremost a family gaming company, that is their image like it or not. Whether or not you agree or disagree with the swapnote removal, it is very damaging to their image and just as damaging to one's morals. If you knew you could reduce the risk of a child being taken by a predator, just by an 1% wouldn't you do it? Don't even start with the "oh parents should watch" bullshit either. The fact is in this day and age kids are much more tech savvy and able to easily navigate through parental blocks and just as easily duck out of punishments by covering their trails. Not to mention that most parents have to work more than one job to support their families and can not always be present and have to trust that their children can think logically for themselves. While most kids can think logically and might know to avoid such things, you have to remember that you're dealing with sexual predators here. Who are very dangerous and manipulative people who know how to work a child's mind and gain their trust. It's inhuman and utterly horrible that some people are this way but it is sadly a fact of life, and we as a society must take the appropriate actions to prevent children from falling into the hands of these people. Swapnote was a fun little app, it is kind bleh that it's gone. But that's just it, it was fun, it had no real utilization or purposes outside of the idle occupation of your time. Putting your "fun" above a child's safety is just downright disgusting.

[Kriven]

And the kids should be the victim of that? Sure; they might be bad parents, but the kids don't deserve to be lured and raped because of their parents' neglect!

This is literally the same risk run by everyone whenever their child enters the Internet. Do you want to take the Internet away because some people suck?

[DioShiba]

I'm just going to say the same thing I said about this on facebook. It's nintendo, they're going to give a shit about they're family friendly image.

They've been doing this since the NES era, and they still kept on doing this even after the ESRB and other rating systems came out. If they find out about something like this they're going to take action.

Yeah, it fucks it up for everyone. But in the end that's how nintendo is going to deal with an issue.

[Koopaul]

There's a saying I once heard, You can either have freedom, or you can have safety. There needs to be a balace obviously, but the problem is your kids are never going to be completely safe. There's going to be someone out there who turn something fun and free into something dangerous. So we can either ban everything that can be potentially dangerous, or train our kids to be smarter and more careful.

And if parents nowadays can't watch or teach their kids, then the real problem isn't gaming apps. I'm not blaming the parents either, if parents are powerless then there's something wrong with the family unit. I always felt the crappy economy is tearing parents away from their children and this is having a profound effect on some of them.

Ahem that's another subject. Either way I hope Nintendo will bring the SpotPass feature back but install some protective controls on there instead of getting rid of it forever.