Y'know, I defend Nintendo's online services because they're free but...what? You don't announce something that makes your service seem less desireable and then be vague about it.
Title: Re: Nintendo Announces Wii Pay & Play for the Wi-Fi Connection
Post by: Dirk Temporo on February 22, 2008, 11:08:48 PM
THIS BETTER MEAN WE GET VOICE CHAT AND NO FRIEND CODES NINTENDO.
Title: Re: Nintendo Announces Wii Pay & Play for the Wi-Fi Connection
Post by: Bill Aurion on February 22, 2008, 11:09:19 PM
What the? This better be only for the most online-intensive games like MMORPGs or something (I'm thinking Animal Crossing, sadly)...Which would be sad, because I'd like to play Animal Crossing online but I refuse to pay for online gaming...
Title: Re: Nintendo Announces Wii Pay & Play for the Wi-Fi Connection
Post by: Smoke39 on February 22, 2008, 11:12:18 PM
I'm guessing this will only be for MMO games. If not, I just won't play online. :/
Title: Re: Nintendo Announces Wii Pay & Play for the Wi-Fi Connection
Post by: UltimatePartyBear on February 22, 2008, 11:25:31 PM
It sounds like all they announced is a new logo for games that have for-pay features.
Title: Re: Nintendo Announces Wii Pay & Play for the Wi-Fi Connection
Post by: Ceric on February 22, 2008, 11:26:26 PM
Yep I was waiting for this. Nintendo realized that they are popular enough to start jerking people around. We all know that Nintendo is not going to enhance there service to the point of XBox Live. My bet is that they won't enhance a thing. It will just be like PSN where you have to pay to play a game online. I would almost go in for a bet that Nintendo will start charging for basic Online Play. *shrug* I rarely play online anyways.
Title: Re: Nintendo Announces Wii Pay & Play for the Wi-Fi Connection
Post by: Nick DiMola on February 22, 2008, 11:34:27 PM
Ugh, what the **** is going on here. We better get some clarification on exactly what this is.
Title: Re: Nintendo Announces Wii Pay & Play for the Wi-Fi Connection
Post by: Maverick on February 22, 2008, 11:39:30 PM
I was wondering when this was going to pop up here. Perhaps this is for third parties who want to charge for online play? I would gladly pay Nintendo money for online if they would upgrade their services to the likes of Xbox Live, but as is, I feel ripped off even though it's free.
Title: Re: Nintendo Announces Wii Pay & Play for the Wi-Fi Connection
Post by: Crimm on February 22, 2008, 11:54:00 PM
I was wondering when this was going to pop up here. Perhaps this is for third parties who want to charge for online play?
DING DING DING
Title: Re: Nintendo Announces Wii Pay & Play for the Wi-Fi Connection
Post by: ShyGuy on February 22, 2008, 11:58:29 PM
I think I want to see some examples of the Pay & Play service before I condemn or defend this.
Title: Re: Nintendo Announces Wii Pay & Play for the Wi-Fi Connection
Post by: BranDonk Kong on February 23, 2008, 12:19:13 AM
I seems (at least on IGN's article) that this is for DLC and the likes. They say the Wi-Fi Service connection will remain free, but some games will have this Pay to Play stuff. I think it's a way to get revenues directly to 3rd parties, instead of using Wii Points.
Title: Re: Nintendo Announces Wii Pay & Play for the Wi-Fi Connection
Post by: DAaaMan64 on February 23, 2008, 12:33:15 AM
I love Phantasy Star Onine for gamecube. I bet this is gonna cost money, damn them. I probably won't buy it.
Title: Re: Nintendo Announces Wii Pay & Play for the Wi-Fi Connection
Post by: Maverick on February 23, 2008, 12:39:55 AM
I seems (at least on IGN's article) that this is for DLC and the likes. They say the Wi-Fi Service connection will remain free, but some games will have this Pay to Play stuff. I think it's a way to get revenues directly to 3rd parties, instead of using Wii Points.
No no. The DLC is a separate issue; that will be bought using Points.
Title: Re: Nintendo Announces Wii Pay & Play for the Wi-Fi Connection
Post by: Smash_Brother on February 23, 2008, 12:46:47 AM
When did we become a bunch of whiny, spoiled bitches? Oh, wait, we always were (myself included, but still...).
People, content costs money to produce and therefore someone has to pay for it. I'm guessing this will include online services which offer the ability to connect and communicate with people (ala xbox live) and that sort of thing costs money to operate and develop. Nintendo has said in the past that the online model doesn't work unless it's profitable.
If it was a pittance like 500 Wii points per month, it's not going to break the bank, really. Xbox live is $50 for 13 months, and that includes piles of free stuff which make the service more enjoyable.
It'll be fine, trust me. I'll pay for quality instead of dealing with "it's free but it sucks" any day.
Title: Re: Nintendo Announces Wii Pay & Play for the Wi-Fi Connection
Post by: vudu on February 23, 2008, 12:49:39 AM
If it was a pittance like 500 Wii points per month, it's not going to break the bank, really. Xbox live is $50 for 13 months, and that includes piles of free stuff which make the service more enjoyable.
But that would make me a hypocrite for ragging on Live all these years. Don't make out to be a hypocrite, Nintendo!
Title: Re: Nintendo Announces Wii Pay & Play for the Wi-Fi Connection
Post by: Mikintosh on February 23, 2008, 12:54:27 AM
When did we become a bunch of whiny, spoiled bitches? Oh, wait, we always were (myself included, but still...).
People, content costs money to produce and therefore someone has to pay for it. I'm guessing this will include online services which offer the ability to connect and communicate with people (ala xbox live) and that sort of thing costs money to operate and develop. Nintendo has said in the past that the online model doesn't work unless it's profitable.
If it was a pittance like 500 Wii points per month, it's not going to break the bank, really. Xbox live is $50 for 13 months, and that includes piles of free stuff which make the service more enjoyable.
It'll be fine, trust me. I'll pay for quality instead of dealing with "it's free but it sucks" any day.
I'm usually on the "don't overreact" side, and I don't think this is the biggest deal in the world, but I worry whenever Nintendo does something that makes it seem as "corporate" as its competitors. It sold its Wi-Fi connection on the promise that it'd be free and accessible, and by not releasing any details, people are free to speculate that they'll be converting their existing service to one you have to pay for, and while the WFC is fine for free, its very inadequate when compared to Xbox Live.
Now, I imagine that Nintendo will only have this Pay & Play for upcoming games that require special features that cost more money (like Animal Crossing), but we don't know that. Why'd they announce it this way, anyway? Did they think people would be excited about it?
Title: Re: Nintendo Announces Wii Pay & Play for the Wi-Fi Connection
Post by: ShyGuy on February 23, 2008, 12:57:10 AM
So if DLC is separate, and Wiiware is separate, and Virtual Console is seperate, that leaves...
Pay to play games online like Brawl?
Pay to play MMOs online like Animal Crossing?
Pay to play new songs on Guitar Hero? (same as DLC really)
Pay to access the Weather Channel?
Title: Re: Nintendo Announces Wii Pay & Play for the Wi-Fi Connection
Post by: UltimatePartyBear on February 23, 2008, 12:59:09 AM
Why'd they announce it this way, anyway? Did they think people would be excited about it?
Apparently, Nintendo has too high an opinion of its fans and didn't think there'd be a big negative reaction to non-news.
Title: Re: Nintendo Announces Wii Pay & Play for the Wi-Fi Connection
Post by: Smash_Brother on February 23, 2008, 01:08:52 AM
I'm guessing Maverick could also be right in that this is a means for 3rd parties to get their stuff out there.
In either case, I'm sure this won't be replacing the free online structure. There's no reason for it to do so when matchmaking servers are still dirt cheap. This is something bigger and thus costs money.
Title: Re: Nintendo Announces Wii Pay & Play for the Wi-Fi Connection
Post by: Bill Aurion on February 23, 2008, 01:09:28 AM
Why'd they announce it this way, anyway? Did they think people would be excited about it?
Apparently, Nintendo has too high an opinion of its fans and didn't think there'd be a big negative reaction to non-news.
They didn't set up an announcement just for this, it was mentioned during the WiiWare discussion thing Ninty had today...Which makes sense from a developer standpoint, considering it's a developer conference...Would you rather them make a press release for it?
Edit: Look what I found... (http://blog.wired.com/games/2008/02/finalfantasy.html)
Quote
'Crystal Tools' is the new name of Square Enix's company-wide 3-D game development engine, and it'll support Wii.
Quote
"Crystal Tools," Murata said, will also be used in the development of Square Enix's upcoming next-gen MMORPG.
Hmmm...
Title: Re: Nintendo Announces Wii Pay & Play for the Wi-Fi Connection
Post by: Smash_Brother on February 23, 2008, 01:19:44 AM
Well I'm not worried about quality...It's just that I use online so rarely that paying for it just isn't worth it...
That's fair, but I'm sure there will still be free applications of online gaming. In fact, unless it involves a team updating content, I doubt you're going to see it cost money.
Square's MMO is a good example of why this would be needed, and rather than let Square do it, Nintendo stepped up to handle it themselves, looks like.
Title: Re: Nintendo Announces Wii Pay & Play for the Wi-Fi Connection
Post by: stevey on February 23, 2008, 01:29:54 AM
I was wondering when this was going to pop up here. Perhaps this is for third parties who want to charge for online play?
I always thought this was already possible for some reason...
Title: Re: Nintendo Announces Wii Pay & Play for the Wi-Fi Connection
Post by: Mario on February 23, 2008, 02:48:19 AM
It's not going to be for Animal Crossing, that would be suicide, the DS version of it sold 5 million in Japan alone. Paying to play it would kill what's already certain to make a lot of money. It's just for the third parties. It sounds like Nintendo still opposes the idea by the way they are going to make the pay to play games stick out like a sore thumb with the red logo on the boxes.
If they do start charging for their own games, then count me out of the online scene.
Title: Re: Nintendo Announces Wii Pay & Play for the Wi-Fi Connection
Post by: Deguello on February 23, 2008, 06:42:44 AM
Yeah it certainly smacks of Nintendo capitulate to third party demands. And then they'll be mad when consumers and the market prefer free online and wonder why their pay-to-play online is widely unpopular. And then they'll blame Nintendo.
Title: Re: Nintendo Announces Wii Pay & Play for the Wi-Fi Connection
Post by: Infernal Monkey on February 23, 2008, 09:49:36 AM
Hahaha no thanks Nintendo. This is why I'll never hook my 360 up onriiine, paying extra to play games you've already paid for is stupid. Sony wins confirmed, sell your undies.
Title: Re: Nintendo Announces Wii Pay & Play for the Wi-Fi Connection
Post by: Shift Key on February 23, 2008, 04:55:38 PM
Yeah it certainly smacks of Nintendo capitulate to third party demands. And then they'll be mad when consumers and the market prefer free online and wonder why their pay-to-play online is widely unpopular. And then they'll blame Nintendo.
"Iwata-san, our plans to nickel-and-dime your userbase hasn't worked as well as we expected!" "But we gave you the options to sell content to the user, right?" "Yes" "And we told you that most people can tell when they're wasting their money on silly things like new songs or new skins, right?" "Yes" "Great. Release the hounds."
On topic: A separate currency system to Wii Points? I thought Nintendo would try and keep this simple! Yeah, this smells of capitulation rather than innovation.
And I'm still pissed off at the non-news of a better way to store data (for the people about to reply to this, don't bother. I know its not a computer, but whoever wanted it to be treated like a fridge is a buffoon. give me the choice). And see how I didn't say hard drive, even though I bet that's what you're all thinking.
Title: Re: Nintendo Announces Wii Pay & Play for the Wi-Fi Connection
Post by: that Baby guy on February 23, 2008, 05:11:37 PM
Well, there aren't many details, so don't get too hasty about this, but I imagine that from the phrasing and the lack of details that this is just DLC, nothing more, nothing less. You buy the game, they put extra things online, then you pay to play those things. An interesting thing is that the wording implies that games currently out already can and may do this, but will not carry the emblem. My thoughts are that this is likely Guitar Hero 3.
I imagine that the largest issues involved in this decision were the lack of console space, though we may be able to utilize this content on our SD cards, and an attempt to make the payment plan for these games simple. My guess is that you'll be able to use Wii Points to buy the DLC if you want, but Nintendo will allow each individual game to connect online and charge your credit card, as well.
Anyways, this is not bad news, but rather, mediocre news. On one hand, we can buy new content for our games. On the other hand, this may encourage more developers to leave out content from the final game to make you pay them for it later.
Title: Re: Nintendo Announces Wii Pay & Play for the Wi-Fi Connection
Post by: Darkheart on February 23, 2008, 05:14:14 PM
I would have to think this would be for all the MMO's. Square Enix have had said in the past that they tried reasoning with Nintendo to allow them to release FFXI for the Wii but Nintendo had no way to go around this with their current structure.
Title: Re: Nintendo Announces Wii Pay & Play for the Wi-Fi Connection
Post by: Flames_of_chaos on February 23, 2008, 06:17:51 PM
If you look at the article or other articles each game that you will be required to pay for online play will have a different Wi-Fi logo which is.
And considering this is GDC which is aimed for developers and not really the consumers that much I think it got mistranslated and basically what they are trying to say is this: Look if you want to make online games that play for free , with DLC or a Pay to Play model go ahead, I think it was Nintendo just explaining the flexibility once WiiWare launches and Nintendo expanding different online options for games.
Title: Re: Nintendo Announces Wii Pay & Play for the Wi-Fi Connection
Post by: DAaaMan64 on February 23, 2008, 08:59:16 PM
I seriously thought that Logo was just a joke.
Title: Re: Nintendo Announces Wii Pay & Play for the Wi-Fi Connection
Post by: Pale on February 23, 2008, 09:01:03 PM
If you look at the article or other articles each game that you will be required to pay for online play will have a different Wi-Fi logo which is: (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v438/CONFUZZLED_MUNKIE/051202_nintendo_wifi2.jpg)
And considering this is GDC which is aimed for developers and not really the consumers that much I think it got mistranslated and basically what they are trying to say is this: Look if you want to make online games that play for free , with DLC or a Pay to Play model go ahead, I think it was Nintendo just explaining the flexibility once WiiWare launches and Nintendo expanding different online options for games.
Isn't that logo just the photoshop kotaku used to rag on the story? =P
But seriously, I agree with you and everyone else. Nintendo was probably taking crap from a LOT of developers about not having any way to accept money for snippets of information. Heck, they were even hearing crap from a lot of fans (see Guitar Hero). This is them saying they are putting the infrastructure in place. For all we know, this infrastructure is the ONLY reason Rock Band is hitting Wii at all.
Title: Re: Nintendo Announces Wii Pay & Play for the Wi-Fi Connection
Post by: that Baby guy on February 23, 2008, 09:04:33 PM
It is a joke, and a retarded shot by Kotaku, who pay their Xboxlive bills regularly enough to get in that tubgirl pic whenever you're at a terrible location.
Title: Re: Nintendo Announces Wii Pay & Play for the Wi-Fi Connection
Post by: Flames_of_chaos on February 23, 2008, 09:51:58 PM
Well I think it's smart that Nintendo would make a different WiFi logo for a game that sports a pay to play model so that people won't get pissed about the little surprise when they try to play online. But I do hope they do fix the transfer rates of the SD card considering how a 200 block games takes quite a few minutes to transfer when in reality a 200 block game is roughly 12 - 13MB big.
Title: Re: Nintendo Announces Wii Pay & Play for the Wi-Fi Connection
Post by: Athrun Zala on February 24, 2008, 01:49:45 AM
Well I think it's smart that Nintendo would make a different WiFi logo for a game that sports a pay to play model so that people won't get pissed about the little surprise when they try to play online. But I do hope they do fix the transfer rates of the SD card considering how a 200 block games takes quite a few minutes to transfer when in reality a 200 block game is roughly 12 - 13MB big.
more, actually, as 1 block = 128kB... so a 200 block game is 25MB big...
Title: Re: Nintendo Announces Wii Pay & Play for the Wi-Fi Connection
Post by: MegaByte on February 24, 2008, 01:56:18 AM
Isn't that logo just the photoshop kotaku used to rag on the story? =P
Yes, but Nintendo DID show a new red/orange logo for the WFC Pay & Play titles.
Title: Re: Nintendo Announces Wii Pay & Play for the Wi-Fi Connection
Post by: PaLaDiN on February 24, 2008, 07:08:36 PM
Ha. Ha ha.
Title: Re: Nintendo Announces Wii Pay & Play for the Wi-Fi Connection
Post by: darknight06 on February 25, 2008, 12:22:33 PM
King of Fighters 94 is NOT roughly 12 to 13MB, that would put it in the same size league as arcade SF2WW and we all know it ain't that small.
As far as Wii Pay to Play is concerned, who didn't see this coming? This is what will support Monster Hunter 3 in Japan as well as anything else that comes out down the road that will need it. I highly doubt Nintendo themselves will bother with this much if at all. You'll probably still see the basic matchmaking and FC's for the majority of their games. If Disaster gets an online multiplayer mode, this could be the easy way to weed out the kids and allow for much fuller features.
