Nintendo temporarily suspending SwapNote/Letter Box service for 3DS

OK, Nintendo, you are so out of it. I use this all the time.

Well, it'll be mostly obsolete when Miiverse comes out for 3DS, but... I'd prefer if they'd waited until that was actually there. And when they do bring Miiverse to 3DS they should just fold in all the Swapnote features- the bigger drawing area, different colors, 3D, etc.

Where does the article say it's being killed? They're saying it was suspended because people were sending illicit photos and a lot of kids use the system, and that they're looking into ways to fix that.

Eh, I never used it. :/ Besides, I'm reading that it'll be "suspended", not "killed"; it'll probably be back in a different form.

Nintendo's still looked at as the company with the "safe" gaming systems, so they're basically just trying to cover their ass. I'm sure they know that they aren't responsible for the content sent by their consumers, but many parents don't, or just won't care about that fact if it happens to/with their kid, and will use Nintendo as a scapegoat. It's dumb, sure, but I get why Nintendo's going this far (though I wonder if there were other measures they could have taken).

I think this sucks ass, because I used Swapnote to send notes and little doodles (all SFW, I must stress) to my friends, who live all over the country and can thusly be difficult to get a hold of. I kinda feel like boycotting Nintendo over this.

Also, I'll miss Nikki, and I never got to buy and use any cute stationary.

edited 31st Oct '13 10:53:50 PM by BearyScary

Boycotting them over what? Suspending the service while they work out how to prevent people from sending pictures of their junks over Swapnote, or whatever the offensive material mentioned was?

Also, it's the Spot Pass feature, not Swap Note entirely. ...but then the article says everythig but Spot Pass was suspended?

I'm confused now.

But I do have this to say; this sucks for all involved, but the people who were abusing the app are at fault.

edit:

Okay, yeah, so it's the Spot Pass (read: online sending) feature that's gone. So thanks a heap, whoever was sending inappropriate notes out. Thank you so very much.

edited 31st Oct '13 11:11:07 PM by Enlong

That's what I read. So do they mean Spot Pass is out entirely, or just the part that lets you send messages? I don't know how this works.

edited 1st Nov '13 1:40:27 AM by edvedd

The moral here: thoroughly read an article before posting about it.

I hope Nintendo finds a way to fix this. The obvious solution is to remove the ability to attach photos... it's a wonder no one has abused StreetPass yet.

So, what should we do with our Swapnotes?

Should we delete the app?

I also checked out the shop, and they didn't remove Swapnote...

edited 1st Nov '13 3:56:37 AM by DiurnalBrocolli

They just disabled sending spotpass notes. Basically useless now but you can still send notes using the Street Pass.

They aren't killing it; just disabling it for surgery.

I could see why they would do that. I've actually seen some of the artists I've followed send... uhm, explicit drawings to others.

But it is a bit shitty, I won't lie.

Please don't be sensationalist when picking a thread title.

To be fair, it's the title of the article linked in the first post... Also, just got the official notification of the suspension on my 3DS. Wonder how long it'll take for them to fix this.

edited 1st Nov '13 6:18:40 AM by Customer

I'm more curious as to how they are going to fix his. The only way I can see them fix this is by cutting photos out of Swap Note, which I don't really see them doing.

I'm curious as to the precipitating event that caused this. I think this potentially could have been an issue any time in the last 12 months, but it's only happening now. Was there some sort of sensationalist report? Was this the result of authorities tipping Nintendo after a major sting? And just what was the offense? I know that everyone's reflexive reaction (mine too, admittedly) is to think that someone was distributing, ahem, personal anatomy pictures. But given that I have tripped across blatant racism in a couple games' StreetPass items (come on, who even names their Animal Crossing New Leaf town something related to Nazis?), part of me thinks that might be the more likely issue that's being addressed.

I haven't used the thing much, but I'm now annoyed since I was hoping to use it more when I would become less lazy =/

I heard a suggestion that one can simply make use of the parental controls to block any griefers from sending you messages. Either that, or lock it completely, but don't shut it down for absolutely everyone.

My only message that I wrote for Spotpass was one about Nintendo Power's closing, and I don't have many friends registered right now.

Now how will I send doodles of Thugnificent to people that wouldn't know who he is?

@using StreetPass: The reason they didn't remove that functionality is because sending messages through that requires that both people have each others' friend codes. Obviously this makes the app useless if you don't have any friends with a 3DS who live nearby, but the issues with people sending explicit material would clearly be much easier to deal with when they are present in person.

So, basically, it's now like the Message thing from the DS.

edited 1st Nov '13 8:29:40 AM by DiurnalBrocolli

Pretty much. Pictochat, was it?

edited 1st Nov '13 9:01:09 AM by Swampertrox

Yeah, that's what it was called!

...So much for Nikki being in Smash 4, and a potential Swapnote stage.

I really doubt this incident will somehow keep something like that from occurring.

edited 1st Nov '13 9:09:40 AM by Customer

Axe! It was you and your booty butt cheeks wasn't it?

Incidentally, Microsoft is ahead of Nintendo in this area.

Kotaku's report on this says that they're permanently disabling it.

I could still use it AFTER the designated kill time last night though, albeit only for personal notes for myself. The online capabilities were turned off.

One such comment on the article raised a good point. Nintendo wouldn't have done this unless they knew that people were sending offensive material, which means they were either spying on us, or some Moral Guardians pestered them about it.

edited 1st Nov '13 9:25:05 AM by DRCEQ