Some time ago, in an editorial I never finished, I had begun to write down some thoughts about what we know as Tag Mode—a feature of several Nintendo DS games where the user puts the system to sleep, yet it continues to send and listen for wireless beacon packets from other systems, exchanging data with them when it finds them as the user carries the system around—particularly in light of stories about its then-prevalence in Japan with Dragon Quest IX. For that game, crowds would gather on the streets, faces down in their DS systems, hoping to exchange data with others and get new dungeons in which to fight.
One of the things I planned to expound on was how Tag Mode really doesn't work all that well in the U.S. because our population density is so much lower. It's just not all that likely, even if you're walking even through a populous city, that someone else is also playing Nintendogs in what that game called its "Bark Mode" configuration. I tried this myself in the slightly less-populous areas where I live, for weeks on end and when that game was still new, and only managed to run into one other player's puppy. Despite half-heartedly trying Tag Mode a few more times afterward with other games, I never ran into anyone in this mode again.
But a little-talked-about feature of the upcoming Nintendo 3DS just might have what it takes to change that.
The specified range of the current Nintendo DS is 30-100 feet, depending on conditions. Mentally figure that distance from your body out sometime and then use that estimation to figure how many people you pass by, and just guess how many might actually be DS players in the first place—let alone playing the game you are playing, or even whether they might have been a potential Tag Mode partner in the past, but had given up because they had never actually found anyone. (Try not to think too hard about the Western perception that DS is for kids, and what that says for how likely it is any given person would be carrying one—it'll just end up depressing you.)
This isn't so much a problem in Japan. The sheer saturation of Nintendo DS players as well as the population density create a perfect storm that makes Tag Mode work, at least for current games that more people are likely to be playing. For a wildly popular game like Dragon Quest IX, the effect is magnified, resulting in hordes of people actually accumulating in shops (until they're kicked out) or on street corners to increase their chances at getting a tag in. The network effect, as I call it, is responsible for getting them there.
At the end of the day, nearly everything that uses Tag Mode is just a random reward, in some fashion. In Nintendogs, you'd get to meet a random dog another player had. In Animal Crossing: Wild World, a message in a bottle from another player would wash up on your beach. In The World Ends With You, you'd earn extra points to level up your pins (weapons). And in Dragon Quest IX, it's all about exchanging randomly-generated treasure maps. But what makes it work, I think, is the notion that seeking out a place where there's a lot of others, in the real world, is something you can actually do to improve your chances at getting good random rewards, or maybe just even more of them.
One of the things I planned to expound on was how Tag Mode really doesn't work all that well in the U.S. because our population density is so much lower. It's just not all that likely, even if you're walking even through a populous city, that someone else is also playing Nintendogs in what that game called its "Bark Mode" configuration. I tried this myself in the slightly less-populous areas where I live, for weeks on end and when that game was still new, and only managed to run into one other player's puppy. Despite half-heartedly trying Tag Mode a few more times afterward with other games, I never ran into anyone in this mode again.
But a little-talked-about feature of the upcoming Nintendo 3DS just might have what it takes to change that.
The specified range of the current Nintendo DS is 30-100 feet, depending on conditions. Mentally figure that distance from your body out sometime and then use that estimation to figure how many people you pass by, and just guess how many might actually be DS players in the first place—let alone playing the game you are playing, or even whether they might have been a potential Tag Mode partner in the past, but had given up because they had never actually found anyone. (Try not to think too hard about the Western perception that DS is for kids, and what that says for how likely it is any given person would be carrying one—it'll just end up depressing you.)
This isn't so much a problem in Japan. The sheer saturation of Nintendo DS players as well as the population density create a perfect storm that makes Tag Mode work, at least for current games that more people are likely to be playing. For a wildly popular game like Dragon Quest IX, the effect is magnified, resulting in hordes of people actually accumulating in shops (until they're kicked out) or on street corners to increase their chances at getting a tag in. The network effect, as I call it, is responsible for getting them there.
At the end of the day, nearly everything that uses Tag Mode is just a random reward, in some fashion. In Nintendogs, you'd get to meet a random dog another player had. In Animal Crossing: Wild World, a message in a bottle from another player would wash up on your beach. In The World Ends With You, you'd earn extra points to level up your pins (weapons). And in Dragon Quest IX, it's all about exchanging randomly-generated treasure maps. But what makes it work, I think, is the notion that seeking out a place where there's a lot of others, in the real world, is something you can actually do to improve your chances at getting good random rewards, or maybe just even more of them.