Alone in the StreetPass Crowd

[Kyle Orland]

Alone in the StreetPass Crowd

StreetPass is a clever bit of technology that lets 3DS systems speak to each other, but if Kyle Orland?s experience is any indication, there isn?t much to say.

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[SachielOne]

The main problem I've had with Streetpass thus far is that in the month since I bought it, I've only tagged five people. Only one of these was when I was out and about. Two were at the EB Games on the Ocarina of Time 3D launch day, and the other two were at the theatrical showing of the Trigun movie. And this is in city with over a million people in it.

Basically, the only way to get it to work at current market penetration levels is to attend a geek event or convention of some kind. We just don't have the population density on most of this continent to use the feature effectively.

 

[Worgen]

yeah, street pass really isnt designed for a country that isnt japan or a city that isnt new york, I tend to take mine running and sometimes to school but I havent gotten a single hit yet, although I do have a butt load of coins, I do fully plan on taking it to a nerd con I want to go to though

 

[orangeapples]

My friend is lucky on his street passes. He works at Gamestop and keeps his 3DS under the counter. He gets like an average of 5 a day. Once he got 8. Still rather underwhelming though.

 

[Invariel]

I have found myself DS-stalking the city mall hoping for streetpasses. Those catwarriors don't really hold up to the inevitable second playthrough of Find Mii.

 

[Spoon E11]

Something similar to this was built into the game "Metroid Prime Hunters" on NDS. However not once did I find anyone with the feature turned on.

You had to have metroid loaded up and the rivals mode turned on which ate into battery life really fast. Information that was saved I never actually got a look at because I never ran into anyone with the function turned on before my battery went dead.

 

[Midniqht]

I'm honestly considering selling my 3DS... It seemed like a great idea at the time of purchase, but now it just sits there, never being used, precisely because of crap features like this that aren't really useful at all. And don't even get me started on the games.

 

[Mister Benoit]

Meh, i'd love a 3DS but there are no games that interest me. The only game I can think of is the Mario platformer coming out for the holiday.

If they would've saved Pokemon B/W for 3DS launch they would have sold a ton more units.

Street pass seems neat though, shame it's a fairly shallow feature at the moment.

 

[Serving UpSmiles]

I'm honestly considering selling my 3DS... It seemed like a great idea at the time of purchase, but now it just sits there, never being used, precisely because of crap features like this that aren't really useful at all. And don't even get me started on the games.

Precisely why im waiting for the innevitable Lite version, which will have longer battery life, faster software, and by then a lot of decent/good games will be out for it.

 

[T_ConX]

ITT: We complain about how few Street Pass hits we've gotten. Myself:

-Some guy in a bar 3 weeks ago.
-Some girl at a train station 3 weeks ago.
-Some guy in a 7-11 3 months ago.
-The demo unit at a Best Buy 3 months ago.

Yeah, I ended up beating Find Mii with a Kitten Knight Army funded entirely by walking.

 

[Gennadios]

Was I the only one aware of Nintendo's track record with online play when the 3DS was announced? I can't believe anyone actually expected a useful execution. Also, the friends as resources comment was brilliant, was a missed opportunity to make a facebook joke.

 

[theultimateend]

I have found myself DS-stalking the city mall hoping for streetpasses. Those catwarriors don't really hold up to the inevitable second playthrough of Find Mii.

I've seen 100 warriors, and still not made it to my guy for the first playthrough . I get the worst luck when it comes to shirt matching shields.

 

[Jumplion]

I don't buy the "But what about Pedos!?" argument. If that argument had any semblance of credibility, we'd have pedophiles flying to Nintendo's equivalent; Xbox Live and PSN (PC is irrelevant in this particular topic). Considering that we get an extremely rare story like this once every few months, I'd have to say that this is a non-issue. Teach your kids to not just blindly accept every friend request and report suspicious behavior, and it should be fine. There's no reason why Nintendo can't make their system more friendly towards, you know, making friends.

 

[NakedBoB]

I'd be totally content with the current StreetPass system if it saved the personal messages. Collected over 300 Miis at E3 and was so disappointed when I discovered that their personal messages were gone. Some of those were people who I met in person and planned to contact again later. Guess I shoulda read up more on the StreetPass issues before I banked on it.

Besides pedophiles, I also dunno if I'd want some random dude on the street knowing that I have a $250/$170 game system in my pocket. Or some obsessed fighting fan wanting to play Street Fighter while I'd rather be playing Bit.Trip or whatnot, especially if the guy is only a couple of feet away. If it was Xbox Live, I'd just ignore the request. That's gonna be hard to do in person without looking like a dick. For me the anonymity of StreetPass is a big draw.

Love,
Naked BoB

 

[Omechron]

To be perfectly honest I can kind of see Nintendo's point with the whole restrictive online gaming thing. On the one hand, yes it's very difficult to use in a city that isn't Tokyo. Yes it's a big kiss through a screen door. Yes it's very restrictive. On the other hand though, allowing unrestrained communication tends to lead to communities like X-Box Live and 4chan which... have you BEEN on X-Box Live lately?

As the market share increases and games that use it better come out, this street pass malarkey may become useful. I can certainly see Pokemon using it to great effect. But even if it stays with picto chat in the bin of "things that are only useful in Tokyo and at anime conventions which are kind of trans-dimensional extensions of Tokyo", oh well. It won't be the first or last game feature to never really come to anything. For now, the 3DS still performs its primary function adequately: Be very hard to emulate so people will actually buy games.

 

[KezzieZ]

Yeah, I imagine StreetPassing is way better in Japan.

I think I have around... 11 passes so far? More like 13 or something if I count repeats and I've had mine for months (and frequently visit game/electronics stores and the local mall).

 

[Nami nom noms]

In the 2 weeks I've had my 3DS I've gotten a total of 4 hits, and that included going to a music festival

Mind you I expect to find more once more games come out and the price gets cheaper.

 

[proandi]

Basically there just aren't enough people walking around with their DS's on using this feature. Once more sell and more quality AAA titles are out I'm sure the number will shoot up. Also the fact that if you're like me your 3DS will be bouncing around in your bag getting all manner of scuffs and marks. I sometimes regret buying at launch as I really don't use it. I purposefully today turned it on and put it in my bag to go to work with just to see if I get any hits, I don't like in a big city though so I'll have to see if I get any hits at all.

 

[Zom-B]

Totally sounds like a really cool function that's only half-baked and kind of useless for most people. I kind of hope that the PSV has something similar, but I know that it would probably suffer from the same lack of connections that the 3DS does.

That actually reminds me of MGS: Portable Ops and how you could recruit new soldiers from any wifi signals in range of your PSP. It was neat, but aside from inside my own building it was a pain to lug around the PSP (not that it's a "pain", but you know what I mean) turn the game on, then "recruit" by searching for wifi signals. It would have been way better if the PSP had just archived the soldiers that each signal provided and then when you turned it on they were there waiting to be recruited. Oh well. It was still a neat feature.

Anyway, poor Nintendo. So out of touch, basically making kiddie toys that are at least as, if not more, popular with adults than kids.