"Why do you care if the Switch won't have a web browser? Do you use your console web browser at all? The only people harmed will be horny kids who don't have a computer."
When I first heard the news that the Nintendo Switch won't have a web browser, that was basically my first thoughts too. Before I got a computer, I did use the Nintendo DS browser a lot to read wikipedia, but then I got a computer and I barely even open the browsers on my game consoles.
Well...in the comments of the ReviewTechUSA video I heard the news on, I had a major realization on why this is a problem.
"I DO care, how else am I going to login on my university wifi?????"
And this got me thinking, "yes, that is the primary reason I use the web browser on my 3DS."
See, at my old university, to connect your device was more than "enter the router password." After connecting to the wifi, you had to open a web page and log in with your student ID and register your device. If you didn't do that, you wouldn't be able to use hulu, netfix, youtube, or online gaming. If you tried to connect without registering the device by saying "I accept the TOS, register this device to my student account" in the web browser, you couldn't use it.
"OK, that sucks for students and faculty, but that's only...half of the target audience. But I'm not a student, so it's not a problem for me."
Yeah I had that thought as well, but then I remembered when I go places with public wifi, such as fast food restaurants and hotels, especially hotels. I could live without restaurants since I'm normally not there for extended periods of time. But when I go to hotels, I want to connect my device to the internet to use internet apps. At hotels, I like to watch hulu on my 3DS while I surf the web on my laptop. And when I go to hotels, probably 3/4 times I need to open the web browser and say "I accept the TOS" before I can watch hulu. There's also airport wifi. Almost always, if you want to use their wifi, you NEED to sign in at the browser landing page and purchase credits/enter promotional codes.
I get it, the web browser is an easy back door for hacking consoles, and Nintendo doesn't want people hacking their consoles. Also, most people don't use the web browsers with all the better devices for surfing. But it's kind of important for using the internet in many situations. It's a hybrid semi-portable console that I'm guessing many owners will take with their Switches with them on trips, and a reality of those trips will be "I need to go to the in browser log in page to connect to the wifi so I can do various internet connected activities." Plus, it's very tablet like, so people may want to use it for tablet browsing.
Well, this has been Happy Gamer, signing off, and hopefully Nintendo has a solution for "I need a browser to access internet functions."
No comments:
Post a Comment