Tiny Diggers – An iPad Construction Truck Game for Kids Age 2-5

Here’s a bizarre tidbit from the annals of gaming launches: back when Nintendo launched the Wii in America, the company specifically reserved some of the numerically coolest Friend Codes for the cast of “Friends.”

Cast your mind back to mid-2006. Nintendo is incredibly nervous about the Wii, the GameCube follow-up which will carry the fortunes of the entire company. After revealing the name and odd-looking controllers – and being publicly drubbed on the Internet over it – Nintendo started angling for unusual ways to draw attention to a gaming console that had every showing of going over like a lead balloon with the usual gaming crowd.

Enter Friend Codes. Finally, a Nintendo system that would play online! But how to make sure the message of thi bold, new Nintendo would be received? How about cooking up a deal with NBC’s legendary sitcom “Friends”? GET IT.

According to a long-forgotten press release so old we only have it in paper format, Nintendo reserved Friend Codes 1111-1111-1111-1111 through 1111-1111-1111-6666 for the six principal cast members. With the show having ended in 2004, an onstage “reunion” of the six leads was expected to make a big media splash… especially considering the highly public feud between David Schwimmer and Matt LeBlanc that delayed the final episode for six weeks and resulted in Schwimmer’s near-total blackballing from the entertainment industry.

Unfortunately, early development on It Girl Jennifer Aniston’s “Marley & Me” left her unavailable for Nintendo’s press conference, and the entire concept fell apart shortly thereafter. Also, Courteney Cox’s then husband David Arquette was an insufferable “core” gamer and was frankly embarrassed that his wife would have to stump for “another Nintendo baby toy,” as he was famously quoted. Nevertheless, the reserved FCs remain in Nintendo’s system, a permanent reminder of a daring-but-failed cross-media marketing event.

Mii Source: MiiCharacters.com