Last Telephone Hint-Line Standing?

[Bojay1997]

... that can't be right.

I remember some of my Dreamcast games had hint line phone numbers...

Looks like you're right. AIA ran a US hint line for Ilbleed. Here's a manual scan I found with the number listed on Page 10.

http://gamesdbase.com/Media/SYSTEM/S...razy_Games.pdf

[Aussie2B]

Uh, guys, if you just read the previous posts, you'd see that hint lines were going even during the PS2 days.

By the way, the Nintendo automatic line ran concurrently with the live counselor line. In the early days of Nintendo's counselors, the line didn't even cost anything. It was simply a long distance number, but if you happened to live in the Seattle area, you could call them for free as much as you'd like. Later on, around the mid-90s I think, they wised up and made it a 900 number, and they added the automatic line as what you could call for free (or at least just for the cost of a long distance call). I have no idea when they stopped with the live counselors, but if the automatic line lasted until 2010, I would assume that it outlasted the counselors.

The bummer is that I missed out free counselors. The Nintendo's area code (206) used to extend much farther around Seattle, but by the time I started using the counselors, they had already switched to 1-900 and my town had gotten a new area code too, so I even had to pay for the automatic line since it was long distance at that point. I used both a little nonetheless, though.

[rbudrick]

I will never forget the massive phone bill I got as a kid and the stroke my parents had for calling 206 885 7529 too often. I'll never forget that number.

-Rob

[Bojay1997]

Uh, guys, if you just read the previous posts, you'd see that hint lines were going even during the PS2 days.

By the way, the Nintendo automatic line ran concurrently with the live counselor line. In the early days of Nintendo's counselors, the line didn't even cost anything. It was simply a long distance number, but if you happened to live in the Seattle area, you could call them for free as much as you'd like. Later on, around the mid-90s I think, they wised up and made it a 900 number, and they added the automatic line as what you could call for free (or at least just for the cost of a long distance call). I have no idea when they stopped with the live counselors, but if the automatic line lasted until 2010, I would assume that it outlasted the counselors.

The bummer is that I missed out free counselors. The Nintendo's area code (206) used to extend much farther around Seattle, but by the time I started using the counselors, they had already switched to 1-900 and my town had gotten a new area code too, so I even had to pay for the automatic line since it was long distance at that point. I used both a little nonetheless, though.

According to various on-line sources, Nintendo closed down the game counselor line in 2005 and moved the employees into other departments. I'm pretty surprised that the line was still around less than seven years ago, although I guess most people still didn't have broadband up until the last few years, so perhaps there was still a huge demand for using the phone over other sources.