Why Nintendo’s online gaming paranoia could kill the Wii

[vashivihan]

It wont kill the Wii, like wezeles said, the Wii is a party console. A lot of people buy the Wii because they can play virtual tennis with their spouse.

well then why are people getting mad about friend codes and lack of voice chat. sure, nintendo may be doing good now but the online (voice chat, dlc, etc) is the future whether u like it or not and nintendo has a lot to catch up to.

 

[Subarnu]

^^ The Wii has sold millions of Wiis and not all of those Wiis went to people looking for dlc and voice chat.

The first thing my mom said when I told her the Wii could access the internet was: Wont we get viruses from it then?

 

[vashivihan]

The first thing my mom said when I told her the Wii could access the internet was: Wont we get viruses from it then?

and then there are some people........ lol jk:wink:

 

[wezeles]

well then why are people getting mad about friend codes and lack of voice chat. sure, nintendo may be doing good now but the online (voice chat, dlc, etc) is the future whether u like it or not and nintendo has a lot to catch up to.

True they have alot to fix, but honestly they were right, besides probably 10% of its gamers most of Nintendo consumers don't care about online.
And honestly most the games out for Wii really wouldn't be great online aside from a few. Most of them are fun games to play with friends but I couldn't see myself getting half as geeked at playing Wii bowling drunk with a buddy over the net as opposed to in person.

The games that are really going to need the online isn't so much the Nintendo games,aside from a few like animal crossing, but the FPS,MMORPG,Sports games that 3rd party is more well known for and should be pushing onto the Wii with online service.

MOH:H2 is a decent setup, the friends code still kinda sucks but open browsing for rooms to play in is easy and well setup. They simply need to do more games like that becasue that is the games that do great online anyways. They need to just let 3rd party do whatever they want for online, let them worry about the angry parents. Nintendo can improve their own online setup and keep it "userfriendly".

It would have been nice to have more options in SSBB but if they left it open to use whatever options you would have everything form 2 minute to unlimited battles and from 1 to 100 stock. Simply far to many options to choose from and it would end up being a pain when people drop out or just straight up stop to do somethign mid fight. What makes games like that fun is the intesity of it with too many options you can make that appeal fall off when others leave even for a minute.

 

[T3kNi9e]

True they have alot to fix, but honestly they were right, besides probably 10% of its gamers most of Nintendo consumers don't care about online.

Yup, the people complaining are the people who come online and follow the game industry. But most people who own the Wii do not follow anything about the Wii. They buy the console and buy games. Most of them probably don't know anything outside of that so they don't give a ****. Wii's demographic is made up of mostly kids and casual gamers. So chances are they couldn't give two shits about Wii's online.

So as long as Wii doesn't overprice their console, I would say they're solid. Do I think they will sell as good next gen? I have no idea and no one else knows either, but im pretty sure they will be okay.

 

[jl559]

^i agree with T3kNi9e

I don't understand why people are trying to defend the wii's bad online service. It's a clear fault with the wii but some fanboys can't seem to accept it. Especially when they use such arguments like wii being not about online but controls, or gamers alike don't care about it. IMO, the PS3 & 360 set a new standard with online and nintendo is being stubborn in not changing.

 

[Subarnu]

We have accepted it, we are pointing out the reasons why Nintendo is ignoring online.

 

[linuxghost]

What we have to remember, first and foremost, is that the Wii is still in its infancy.

XBox Live on the 360 didn't start getting flooded with a lot of downloadable content (XBox Live Arcade) until roughly its 2-year anniversary, last fall and winter.

The Wii is only about a year and a half old, and even less if you consider that the vast majority of "casual" consumers have just been able to buy one within the past 6 months or so.

With the advent of Wiiware in May, I think we'll see downloadable games and content skyrocket in popularity, as they have on the 360 and PS3.

And soon after that happens, I'd bet anything we'll see more and more commercial games making online play available.

As much as people say, "WII ISN'T ABOUT ONLINE GAMING!!!" I'm sorry, but you're wrong. No, that may not have been it's original focus, and it may never be, but without at least COMPETITIVE online gaming and capabilities, it just won't hold gamers' interests like 360 and PS3 will.

Online play, downloadable content, etc., really are the future (maybe even the present?) of gaming. If Nintendo tries to deny this, they'll REALLY be shooting themselves in the foot in another 6 months, or a year, or two years.

 

[the doc]

sure you guys have covered the consoles but what about who is making the biggest sum. from game titles

 

[wezeles]

The Wii will improve with online thats not in question, But it will not get to the level of Xbox will, nor will they even try.

Why?

Because it doesn't need to!

The demographics are clear, the majority of Xbox users are the 16-24 year old Male crowd and the type of games they love to play are Shooters/Sports/Racing ect.. Sure more is offered but the top selling games are these types of games and are the main reason Xbox exsist "no matter what any fan boy tells you"

It's not a bad thing it's just one specific direction to go in gaming. It's all about the competition with other people, not so much your friends at home, but also not a computer bot eaither. This is also why the Chat is so popular, you can talk trash to your opponets as you play, or work out a strategy with online teammates. This requires a great online setup to work. They have even gone a bit over board IMO and seem to toss everything online even when it's not needed.
This is probably due to the fact without online honestly the Xbox would have nothing real to offer, and people would get board of it pretty quickly unless they had enough cash to dump on a new game every couple weeks. The Multiplayer online is essential to the 360's sucess, it's not a bad thing it's what makes it fun!

Now the PS3 is a bit odd, they have a wider demographic, probably more of a 12-38 mixed crowd, with a little more to do. They seem to dabble a bit in both the die hard competition realm and also the more RPG/Sims style games that also require a stable connection, but not as extensive of an online setup as the 360 requires. So they are kinda in the middle. They also have a decent library of more casual games much larger than the 360's offerings, but no where near the Wii's

The Wii on the other hand has a huge demographic "not just kids and grandmas, and not just casual" from 1-99 of just about everyone can enjoy the Wii unless they specifically can't stand anything in gaming besides one genre that the Wii doesn't dominate.
But Wii does offer a little bit of everything game wise, They have a hit title in just about every game genre. Still their most popular games are the Nintendo classics of Adventure,Party,RPG,and a few group shooters and fighters. Unlike the xbox and to a lesser extent the PS3 the Wii doesn't need crazy online support for these type of games.
The games do very very well with 22 titles already breaking the million marker in only 16 months. But games like Wii sports,Mario Party,SMG,Wario Ware really wouldn't bennifit enough from online to be worth the investment. Nintendo has a whole different view at online as compared to 360 because it is only a perk to draw in some of it's very wide range of consumers. Still it is not a necessity to sell and probably will never be this gen because the type of console Wii is, its not hardcore but its also not just casual, its the everybodys console and they will treat it as such.
Now granted games like SSBB, Mario Kart could have sees even greater sucess because of the online suport, but it is still more of a party console that you play with you smaller group of friends in person, not with 30 some odd strangers on the net.
They will improve online game support for the games that will bennefit from it, beyond that it's a waste of money this round, and thats not something Nintendo is known for doing.

This is also not the same argument as DLC like xbox arcade or Wii-ware or bonus game download content, these types of features are essential to every console and is not really in the same catagory as online gaming, but online shopping. They will make some nice extra profit this round off these features.

 

[jimbo]

just read rock band wii has no online, whats the friken point of getting it, just get ps2 one, comes out earlier and is cheaper!!!

pissed!!!

 

[madbeanman]

id say even more than ten percent of people with wiis dont care about online.
Nintendo are so nervous about losing their family friendly image that they are being extremely cautious about stuff like voice chat.
As for DLC pay and play will sort that out but without a storage solution they may struggle on that front .I think we may see wiiware push nintendos online services better explored on wiiware because developers will be selling to a group of people whose wiis are already online as opposed to the off line group which would probably be a more casual group.
I tihnk nintendo will catch up eventually but stuff like friend codes will always come part of the deal because of nintendos paranoia about the dangers of the internet even though they have browsers on sale for wii and ds. Ah hypocrisy.

 

[T3kNi9e]

You got the percentages wrong. It's not 10% that don't care. It's 10% care about online while the other 90% could give a rats ass.

 

[Sovieto]

The Wii will improve with online thats not in question, But it will not get to the level of Xbox will, nor willt hey even try.

Why?

Because it doesn't need to!

The demographics are clear, the majority of Xbox users are the 16-24 year old Male crowd and the type of games they love to play are Shooters/Sports/Racing ect.. Sure more is offered but the top selling games are these types of games and are the main reason Xbox exsist "no matter what any fan boy tells you"

It's not a bad thing it's just one specific direction to go in gaming. It's all about the competition with other people, not so much your friends at home, but also not a computer bot eaither. This is also why the Chat is so popular, you can talk trash to your opponets as you play, or work out a strategy with online teammates. This requires a great online setup to work. They have even gone a bit over board IMO and seem to toss everything online even when it's not needed.
This is probably due to the fact without online honestly the Xbox would have nothing real to offer, and people would get board of it pretty quickly unless they had enough cash to dump on a new game every couple weeks. The Multiplayer online is essential to the 360's sucess, it's not a bad thing it's what makes it fun!

Now the PS3 is a bit odd, they have a wider demographic, probably more of a 12-38 mixed crowd, with a little more to do. They seem to dabble a bit in both the die hard competition realm and also the more RPG/Sims style games that also require a stable connection, but not as extensive of an online setup as the 360 requires. So they are kinda in the middle. They also have a decent library of more casual games much larger than the 360's offerings, but no where near the Wii's

The Wii on the other hand has a huge demographic "not just kids and grandmas, and not just casual" from 1-99 of just about everyone can enjoy the Wii unless they specifically can't stand anything in gaming besides one genre that the Wii doesn't dominate.
But Wii does offer a little bit of everything game wise, They have a hit title in just about every game genre. Still their most popular games are the Nintendo classics of Adventure,Party,RPG,and a few group shooters and fighters. Unlike the xbox and to a lesser extent the PS3 the Wii doesn't need crazy online support for these type of games.
The games do very very well with 22 titles already breaking the million marker in only 16 months. But games like Wii sports,Mario Party,SMG,Wario Ware really wouldn't bennifit enough from online to be worth the investment. Nintendo has a whole different view at online as compared to 360 because it is only a perk to draw in some of it's very wide range of consumers. Still it is not a necessity to sell and probably will never be this gen because the type of console Wii is, its not hardcore but its also not just casual, its the everybodys console and they will treat it as such.
Now granted games like SSBB, Mario Kart could have sees even greater sucess because of the online suport, but it is still more of a party console that you play with you smaller group of friends in person, not with 30 some odd strangers on the net.
They will improve online game support for the games that will bennefit from it, beyond that it's a waste of money this round, and thats not something Nintendo is known for doing.

This is also not the same argument as DLC like xbox arcade or Wii-ware or bonus game download content, these types of features are essential to every console and is not really in the same catagory as online gaming, but online shopping. They will make some nice extra profit this round off these features.

i wish to counter this. i think its some of a bit more than half of 360 owners dont have it hooked up to the internet. 360 has oblivion, which can be hundreds of hours on its own, bioshock, forza2, dmc4, ect. what the online really does is keeps people playing for hours on end every day, without it people can still find much entertainment, just they wont be hooked like youll find online gears players, halo players, or cod4 players are.

 

[Shoti]

At least Nintendo threw us a (small) bone this time. I hope that the future generation of Nintendo consoles continue to make up for past oversights.

But please get rid of these damn friend codes.