Hopeful Expectations:
- Messaging System on console
I was thinking about this, but if Nintendo is worried about the swapnote situation and wants to potentially prevent it from happening again, perhaps they can employ some messaging system that only functions with preselected phrases.
Like say this, you are playing Tears of the Kingdom, you all know that little icon of “friend is online” and it shows what they are playing.
Let’s say you want to shoot them a message, you’d basically select a bubble that allows for (albeit limited) conversation with the other person:
This would be from a selection called “Multiplayer”
Player A has an interest in playing Mario Kart 8 with friend
Player A goes to friends and selects prompt “Multiplayer”
Player A sends a message that is preselected “Hey want to play [Insert game]?”, in this case it is MK8DX
Player B receives message
Player B has options available to select as a response:
“Yes I would like to play, I will hop on right now”
“No I cannot play right now”
Player A has a selected response to this:
“Ok, great!”
“Ok, we can play together next time!”
This depends on how the conversation goes.
That’s one scenario but enables albeit limited, safer communication between players at least for online components.
This next part is more difficult, and would require Nintendo do more effort to give ideas.
This would be a selection called “Interest”
Player A is interested in a game
Player A is able to see friend list of who has the game
Player C has the game in question
Player A initiated conversation with Player C about the game, topic selection: Interest
Player A selects the game and the bubble “would you recommend this?” To initiate conversation
Player C has received the message about the topic “Interest”
Player C is able to recommend from these:
“Yes” (and they can rate it to show how much they recommend it out of 5 stars)
“No” (can also rate it with why not from preselected representing their feelings of it)
This is a very rough idea, and I know some will say this is pretty half assed, but the whole emphasis is being the safest they can possibly be with no Swapnote fiasco while also still allowing some level of communication between players, and with the focus still remaining on the video games.
This can be expanded of course but it would I be small messages to just allow enough to “talk” to others.
Though I’m unsure what it can be expanded with but it’s open for ideas.
Maybe sharing photos of the game you are playing on your friend list timeline? With the Yeah option for others to contribute and maybe some pre-selected “wow!” Or “that’s awesome” or “so cool!” phrases if you want to “comment” on your friends photos from games.
The one part they’d have to do is accommodate the massive amounts of languages that exist.
I’m if the opinion that discord is better for this stuff anyway, better than consoles.
Also bring back Miiverse for some wider community sharing you cowards!