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Nintendo to charge for some online games

Sky Blue

Sky Blue

Guest
Original poster
Jan 8, 2005
6,856
11
http://blog.wired.com/games/2008/02/nintendo-to-beg.html

Nintendo's Wi-Fi Connection service has always been entirely free of charge, but the company will soon introduce a pay-to-play service for some games, it announced at Game Developers Conference.

"Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection Pay And Play" will let users subscribe on a game-by-game basis to certain titles. Nintendo project leader Takashi Aoyama announced the service at GDC, but did not say what upcoming games would require payment for the service, or how much they would cost.

To avoid customer confusion, Pay-And-Play games will have a red icon on the game's box that reads Pay And Play, in place of the traditional blue Wi-Fi Connection icon, which will only be used for games that are free to play.

This is a pretty big change for Nintendo, who has always been adamant about wanting online gameplay to be free. While this might attract more developers to the service with a new revenue stream, it also might confuse consumers -- and be a hassle if the payment system isn't easy. You'll use Wii Points to pay for the online gaming, so it should be interesting to see if this extends to the DS Lite or if it's just restricted to Wii.
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Also coming, microtransactions, woo!

Wii games will soon be able to download add-on content, said Nintendo project leader Takashi Aoyama at Game Developers Conference.

DLC has been a big part of Microsoft's and Sony's online business, but Nintendo has thus far not allowed games to have downloadable add-on content on Wii. For example, the Wii version of Guitar Hero 3 doesn't currently let you download new songs.

But at his address at GDC this morning, Aoyama said that Nintendo will, in the near future, allow Wii owners to use Wii Points (purchased with a credit card transaction online or on cards in stores) to buy add-on content for games. He said that add-on contents would also be available for disc-based games as well as WiiWare downloadable titles.

The add-on contents for disc games would be purchased within the game, Aoyama said.
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So maybe they'll open up those SD ports, or create some sort of external storage.. right?
Nope.

They'll compress the games and then expand them when you start playing them. "This step should help alleviate the problem with size limitations."

Apparently the manuals for the game will also be stored online-only, not inside the game ROM itself.
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thanks for the info...will have to check that out

what do you think about the, for lack of a better word, sdk that will be released to smaller developers in may, also with the wii fit add on....that will bring small games to the wiiware...that may bring some interesting wii interactions that the big developers and nintendo haven't thought about.....hopefully not like their recent patent of a wii remote accessory of a wii bike and a wii teddy bear....those were just weird...
 
Ohh! New Brawl characters?


I know the lead Dev said to IGN that as far as he knew new characters for Brawl couldn't come because of the lack of a hard drive...which seems a bit shocking that he doesn't know about the flash drive.....hopefully we'll see something.

Also I'm sure we'll see some GH3 tracks...and maybe a hard drive add on?
 
Wow, so now they want people to pay for their lacking wi-fi network... I am shocked to see this tbh, for how lacking and miniscule their "online" experience is I really can't believe that they would attempt to charge for it.

Sounds like Nintendo is shooting themselves in the foot again...
 
Ed H said:
Wow, so now they want people to pay for their lacking wi-fi network... I am shocked to see this tbh, for how lacking and miniscule their "online" experience is I really can't believe that they would attempt to charge for it.

Sounds like Nintendo is shooting themselves in the foot again...
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:confused:

Their doing microtransactions...like MS and Sony, seems like a good thing to me!
 
Yeah, surely you need features to charge...

I'm guessing the fee are going to be for MMOs like Animal Crossing.

Their doing microtransactions...like MS and Sony, seems like a good thing to me!
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I don't know if microtransactions are all that great..and nintendo likes to over-charge for everything (c64 games for 500 points FTL)
 
zap2 said:
:confused:

Their doing microtransactions...like MS and Sony, seems like a good thing to me!
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I could care less about micro-transactions, or did you miss the whole first paragraph?

Nintendo's Wi-Fi Connection service has always been entirely free of charge, but the company will soon introduce a pay-to-play service for some games, it announced at Game Developers Conference.

"Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection Pay And Play" will let users subscribe on a game-by-game basis to certain titles. Nintendo project leader Takashi Aoyama announced the service at GDC, but did not say what upcoming games would require payment for the service, or how much they would cost.
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So its basically pay to play online, like Live however Nintendo Wi-fi and online gaming has about 0.10% of the same features that you pay for with Live, and its nowhere near the same experience. PSN is free to play online and its a far more robust system than the Wii Wi-Fi network. It is ridiculous for Nintendo to charge to play online considering how lacking their online system is.

Ed
 
My guess is that this will be in place for MMO games only so not every game with on-line will require pay.
 
I'm afraid I agree with Ed & Sky Blue. Nintendo charging for basically the worst of all three online experiences is an utter joke.
 
so ? that just means they are enabling microtransactions for everybody and if somebody wants to offer a normal MMPORG etc. with monthly fee he now can and using the points for payment for it

i'm pretty sure we won't be seeing too many games with it...

after all there will be still games without it available


my guess is that AC will get the full MMPORG treament and i suspect they will develop a Pokemon MMPORG ... which simply makes too much sense not to do

edit: and i will never pay money for playing online ... not even to nintendo... i simply hate the idea of additional monthly payments wether it's xbox live or any mmporg like warcraft etc. i rather buy myself a budget PC games every month (february: faces of war, january: company of heroes, december: act of war ... now that's some gameplay for little money)
 
Ed H said:
I could care less about micro-transactions, or did you miss the whole first paragraph?



So its basically pay to play online, like Live however Nintendo Wi-fi and online gaming has about 0.10% of the same features that you pay for with Live, and its nowhere near the same experience. PSN is free to play online and its a far more robust system than the Wii Wi-Fi network. It is ridiculous for Nintendo to charge to play online considering how lacking their online system is.

Ed
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Well hopefully we'll see a big improvement....since their making money off it, its makes sense they'd hopefully put some real effort into their online
 
Yeah....no...hell no. The service offered by Nintendo now isn't worth it well at least they arent charging you for every game played online which would be a total rip off.

I can see them trying to make a buck or two for the MMO games but other than that....no.


Bless
 
zap2 said:
Well hopefully we'll see a big improvement....since their making money off it, its makes sense they'd hopefully put some real effort into their online
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Aranince said:
key word: SOME GAMES. Not all.

I doubt I will pay for the online unless its amazingly better than it is currently showing.
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The real key here is that Nintendo's online system sucks, its lacking, and it doesn't have the basic foundations of the other two to ever amount to anything near what PSN or Live is capable of.

If you want to pay to play on a lackluster featureless online system then by all means do it, imo its a waste of money. Nintendo is shooting themselves in the foot with this one regardless of how many games get this treatment. For the crappy experience that is Wii Wi-Fi they should continue to give it away. This is a Win/Lose situation, they win the consumer loses, its pretty black and white once you set down the kool-aid.

Ed
 
Ed H said:
The real key here is that Nintendo's online system sucks, its lacking, and it doesn't have the basic foundations of the other two to ever amount to anything near what PSN or Live is capable of.

If you want to pay to play on a lackluster featureless online system then by all means do it, imo its a waste of money. Nintendo is shooting themselves in the foot with this one regardless of how many games get this treatment. For the crappy experience that is Wii Wi-Fi they should continue to give it away. This is a Win/Lose situation, they win the consumer loses, its pretty black and white once you set down the kool-aid.

Ed
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Well if the Kool Aid is sweet, you should try some, cause your one bitter gamer ;):D

But, yea, I see where you're coming from, but I'm waiting until we have more info before I judge this Pay to Play for Wii
 
Well I'm going to wait on judging this since nintendo just announced it. I mean brawl is going to be FREE!!(online play still) So, in a way that's a really nice since that's the one wii game i will be playing online.

Games like, Mario Kart Wii might be free and pay and play since it's probably going to a really competitive gaming scene.

But games like phantom hourglass online isn't all that bad. There was no lag and it worked flawlessly. Also guitar hero 3 plays really well for being free too. GH3 has no lag and it gets the job done by connecting to guitarhero.com and putting up my stats so it works better then expected. Also downloadable content might be coming in march still to the U.S.

But I think something like this is a step foward since nintendo was playing devil's advocate saying well, "you just delete games and redownload them" or from nintendo's former PR person, "the wii is like a fridge you just swap out your foods the same goes with games too:confused:" I'm glad they said that wiiware is going to be ready with a date, although knowing nintendo it might be delayed. Overall I'm glad something was said. I was worried there for a while cause they didn't say anything about dlc,online gaming till friday. So, better late then never. This also shows that rock band will have dlc too!! So, I'm going to wait until march when brawl comes out and japan has wiiware to see what type of external storage medium nintendo is going to use to store all the extra goodies expected to come out here by mid-may. :D
 
The reason we all say that Nintendo's on-line experience sucks is not about connection quality and lag and such, it's mainly because of how limited in features it has and because of friend codes.

The great thing about Live, for example, is that you can so easily add friends, see what they are playing, send messages they nearly instantly receive, voice chat, invite them to games, compare achievements on a game by game basis, and so on. Adding friends is so much easier too, since you are far more likely to know your gamer tag off hand, but who really knows their Wii code without having to boot up your system, go into the message section, go to where you make a new note, then to address book, and finally there it is: a bunch of impersonal numbers.

It's Nintendo's attempt to keep kids safe from predators I believe. Problem with their solution for that is that you have to bend over backwards to connect to your friends and when you do, you have no viable way of communicating with them on the Wii. I think this is a terrible solution. Instead, I think they should have just made easy to use parental controls.

Edit: I'm bored right now, so I'm just gonna list things I would like to see changed or added to Nintendo's on-line system:

- Add Nicknames in place of the Wii Code
- Provide a way (perhaps a channel) where people can post their Wii Code/Nicknames under categories of region, favorite games, favorite genres, skill levels, clans, etc. and within this channel a player can send friend requests with a single click next to the listed codes/names.
- Voice Chat
- Friends List that shows whose on and what they are playing
- Ability to look at a friends game play times if they allow it to be shared
- Centralized Game Accomplishment System (Achievements) with some tie-ins to the Game Play Time messages.
- Ability to view messages and friends from the Home Menu during a game
- Notifications for messages or friends coming on-line that can be turned on or off
- Downloads in background
- If a player has a Virtual Console game on their list of games played, you can connect to the Shop Channel and go straight to that game for purchase if you wish
- Ability to send game invites
- Clan support
- Centralized Leader Board System
 
boo!

Pay to download extra content is understandable, but to charge in order to simply play online is a joke. Like Nintendo hasn't had enough trouble getting 3rd parties to add online content... :mad:
 
OK, Infendo just cleared it for me. Nintendo will not be charging for on-line play!

If you see a red icon, that means that game will have the option to download newer content for extra, BUT NINTENDO WILL NOT BE CHARGING FOR ONLINE PLAY! This will remain FREE!

SO ONCE AGAIN, NINTENDO WILL NOT BE CHARGING FOR ONLINE PLAY!

Please updated your subject Sky Blue, it's misleading. ;)

<]=)
 
We already know that, JackAxe, and I'm only fine with that if it will be used for 1st and 3rd party MMO games. I have a feeling that's all it's going to be for, and if so, I think some people claiming "Oh oh! Nintendo is shooting themselves in the foot!" is a bit of an over-exaggeration. However, if it starts getting used for more than that, then that would be very bad.
 
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