Nintendo To Begin Charging For Some Online Gaming

[BD2003]

Originally posted by: randomlinh

Originally posted by: TallBill

Originally posted by: randomlinh
WTF NINTENDO!

sigh... they had so much going for them... and then they botch up online play, yet again.

What game would you actually want to play online anyways?

Well, given this has no effect on SSBB and Mario Kart (I hope...), those won't count. But the point is they keep failing at this. I really miss an old school FPS DM with random people. Hell, geometry wars would be an interesting multiplayer online game. I'm more complaining about the absolute failure of having a decent system in the face of xbox live.

I feel as though this is a huge experiment they wanted to do, and the next Nintendo console may finally get it right.

Medal of Honor Heroes 2 has a 32 man online mode that is about as old school as you can get.

 

[DivideBYZero]

I play Guitar Hero 3 online. I don't understand people who state the Wii has 'no online games'. It's not as widespread as the other two platforms, but it's not as if it can't be done. The developers have not taken advantage of the facility.

DLC is a different issue and the sooner N put out a firmware revision that allows software to run from SD or external USB HDD the better. Games CAN access data from the SD card as it stands, so I'm not sure what technically prevents a dev from selling DLC via other means and you popping it onto your Wii SD card, via your comp. The main reason would be it's a pain, but it's not impossible.

A clear strategy is what is required.

 

[Aikouka]

I hope that won't push developers to do more of this bastardly, "we make you pay to access data that's already on the disc." You could store a measly unlock key on the internal memory that unlocks something from the disc pretty easily after all. This isn't to suggest that Nintendo is forcing this on developers, but it might become more rampant as time goes on. I think the worst games I've seen that do this are the Dance Dance Revolution games for the 360. The first and second both featured 10 downloadable songs yet the download is only 100kb 😛.

Thx2UKonami.

 

[Modeps]

I guess its sort of strange that this is being announced now before the release of SSBB and Kart. I still cant fathom that they'd charge to play either of these online though...

 

[RandomFool]

This obviously means WoW is coming to the Wii. MS is going to be pissed.

 

[erwos]

Originally posted by: BD2003
I'm sure it will only be a matter of time before they properly flesh out and integrate the SD card support if theyre really serious about DLC, but you have to keep in mind these are still addons to Wii games - the DLs will be much smaller, and the 512mb will still hold a decent amount. But a 4GB sd card is under $50 now, and that will hold plenty.

Well, sure, it holds plenty _now_. We're talking about a new paradigm where we're going to be downloading games to these cards. The space might not be adequate then.

Honestly, I'm not sure what Nintendo's plan is here. This might make sense in an MMO context, but the Wii has so little RAM that doing a "real" MMO (versus instanced areas) would be a huge feat. Just charging people to play online... the only reason the 360 gets away with that is because XBL is so phenomenal. The Wii really has nothing that compares.

I'm thinking maybe this is a prelude to paying for games monthly, like how it works in the mobile phone market. For example, play some WiiWare title for 30 days for $2. I can also envision that the backlash from this would be HUGE.

 

[Randum]

sounds like someone wants to cash in on the smash bros phenom coming later next month...

 

[frostedflakes]

Originally posted by: Modeps
I guess its sort of strange that this is being announced now before the release of SSBB and Kart. I still cant fathom that they'd charge to play either of these online though...

Brawl online is free in Japan, so I doubt they'd try to charge for the service in the US. Mario Kart, though, who knows. But I still tend to think they'll keep the 1st and 2nd party titles free, I think this is just opening the doors to 3rd parties who want to offer online play and content, but not for free.

 

[randay]

its probably to encourage 3rd party devs to actually put some effort into online for thier games. I bet thats why theres such a huge lack of online in the first place. if they get to charge for it, theyll probably have a lot more interest in adding online support to thier games. could be good and could be bad.

 

[BD2003]

Originally posted by: erwos

Originally posted by: BD2003
I'm sure it will only be a matter of time before they properly flesh out and integrate the SD card support if theyre really serious about DLC, but you have to keep in mind these are still addons to Wii games - the DLs will be much smaller, and the 512mb will still hold a decent amount. But a 4GB sd card is under $50 now, and that will hold plenty.

Well, sure, it holds plenty _now_. We're talking about a new paradigm where we're going to be downloading games to these cards. The space might not be adequate then.

Honestly, I'm not sure what Nintendo's plan is here. This might make sense in an MMO context, but the Wii has so little RAM that doing a "real" MMO (versus instanced areas) would be a huge feat. Just charging people to play online... the only reason the 360 gets away with that is because XBL is so phenomenal. The Wii really has nothing that compares.

I'm thinking maybe this is a prelude to paying for games monthly, like how it works in the mobile phone market. For example, play some WiiWare title for 30 days for $2. I can also envision that the backlash from this would be HUGE.

There is absolutely nowhere in the article that implies they would start charging for simple online games like mario kart, for some reason, everyone in the world seems to keep reading into that. Of course sensational titles like "nintendo to begin charging..." don't exactly help.

This was announced at GDC to devs. There is NOTHING new about pay to play games, every console has had them, and every console will (Final fantasy XI, for instance). The real meat of this story is that you wont need to sign up to an account with each separate dev, you just pay with Wii points. This centralizes everything, and allows people to pay for MMOs etc using a Wii points card, keeping a CC out of the loop for those that care (especially if we're dealing with kiddie stuff), and that is definitely a bonus to devs. It's also attempting to make it clear right on the box whether or not the games are going to cost to play, rather than having it hidden away on a little line of text in the corner.

Theyre trying to make it obvious you have to pay, and easy/safe to pay. Theyre not saying we're going to start charging for what used to be free.

And if I could get access to a Wiiware game for 30 days for $2, instead of having to pay $10+ to keep it, that would be excellent.

 

[erwos]

Originally posted by: BD2003
This was announced at GDC to devs. There is NOTHING new about pay to play games, every console has had them, and every console will (Final fantasy XI, for instance).

I feel as if you're ignoring the context the announcement was made in. The Wii inarguably has the worst online setup of the current console generation, and instead of talking about how they're going to make it competitive, they're talking about how to make gamers pay? I'd be more receptive to Sony discussing something like this - at least they're in the same ballpark, even if they're not at XBL standards yet.

 

[randomlinh]

Originally posted by: BD2003
Medal of Honor Heroes 2 has a 32 man online mode that is about as old school as you can get.

Yeah, well, I also didn't want another WWI/II game really. I really just want a doom 2 remake with slightly better graphics and kick ass wii controls 🙂

Hell, I think a wiiware commander keen would kick ass!

I play Guitar Hero 3 online. I don't understand people who state the Wii has 'no online games'. It's not as widespread as the other two platforms, but it's not as if it can't be done. The developers have not taken advantage of the facility.

I think it really is there is no coherent methodology to it. And developers have not taken advantage of it because they got it so late in the game. Sure, it's been a while, they should have something... but they were also probably waiting on nintendo's announcement of how that whole gamespy cooperation was going to work (is this it?).

I have no gripe about paying, so long as it's not more than xbox, and at least as good. But I see no downloadable demos, and no type of stats/achievements. It all is very lackluster, if that.

 

[BD2003]

Originally posted by: erwos

Originally posted by: BD2003
This was announced at GDC to devs. There is NOTHING new about pay to play games, every console has had them, and every console will (Final fantasy XI, for instance).

I feel as if you're ignoring the context the announcement was made in. The Wii inarguably has the worst online setup of the current console generation, and instead of talking about how they're going to make it competitive, they're talking about how to make gamers pay? I'd be more receptive to Sony discussing something like this - at least they're in the same ballpark, even if they're not at XBL standards yet.

Well, theoretically, in order to make it competitive, theyre either going to have to charge (like MS) or take a hit on their bottom line and give it away for free (like Sony). Nintendo is and always have been profit driven, and all they do is make games - theyre not going to subsidize their system in order to get into your living room (MS) or push their media format (Sony).

If you ever expect nintendo to do anything approaching MS or even Sony, you're going to have to accept the fact that youre most likely going to have to pay for it, because that kind of service costs cash to run. But even still, at the end of the day, the only thing implying that theyre going to start charging for standard gameplay is the sensationalist title.

 

[ranmaniac]

An online multiplayer version of Goldeneye would be nice...

 

[Trader05]

Maybe a Nintendo Wii - Revolution sku will be released with a hard drive and hd support lol.....you never know. I'd definitly get another one if that was the case. The SD card solution sucks in my opinion...4gb wont do much after a while when downloadable content becomes more popular.