Yeah, I glanced over the interview. To the best that I could tell, it seems like they don't want any third party publishers to develop online gaming for the Wii this year. However, this doesn't say anything about Nintendo's published games. If anything, I'd say they want one of a few things before third parties are allowed to develop online. First, they'll want to publish the games, so they can have at least partial control of the game's code, and so it won't be likely to be released for different platforms. I think form the wording, this is where we are now. After the initial wave of Nintendo-published online games are released, the numbers will reveal Wii gamers want online play. At this point, they'll open up online to developers that are willing to create an exclusive, or almost exclusive, like RE4, for the Wii, and then finally, they'll allow any game to be released with online capabilities, perhaps sometime late next year.

I suppose the truth is that Nintendo likes to maintain control of their platforms. They're going to try to use it to benefit the Wii and DS as best as they can. Think of how much Square Enix wanted to develop for the GBA. In order to convince Nintendo to let them, they had to creat Final Fantast: Crystal Chronicles. Nintendo will take advantage of developers, and make advantageous contracts by initially denying them access to Wii and possibly DS features. On the N64, this attitude certainly helped Sony take the market, but, in some ways, for the GCN, Nintendo used this to their advantage. I suppose we'll have to wait and see how this attitude affects the Wii.

In regards to online play for 3rd Parties, Reggie says they have the Online kits and that the games should be coming out this year.

Reggie speaks at about 1 1/2 minutes in.

What I'm interested in is how this matches up with their approach to online with the DS. They've clearly made tools available there, and even had a third part game online at launch. Why would they be more proprietary with the Wii than they've been with the DS?

And how in the world does this match with the fact that ELEBITS, a THIRD-PARTY GAME is already online here, as is Pokemon Battle Revolution in Japan? If a third party is already online, why do we now hear that other third parties aren't being allowed?

The only thing I can think of is that they STILL must not be online ready with the Wii, or that some of their desired goals for the project haven't been realized yet. What if what is holding back the online full system are features that Nintendo is still in the process of readying? For example, recent interviews unveiled that Nintendo is undergoing research into making text-reading software (as was utilized in Cooking Navi), and there's STILL that outstanding patent on speech-to-text, another research avenue they must be pursuing and may not be at yet. Maybe Nintendo is trying for a fully realized online experience... but their R&D hasn't caught up yet?

~Carmine "Cai" M. Red
Kairon@aol.com

Oh yeah, and that Reggie speech... I mean... none of this matches up cleanly.

~Carmine "Cai" M. Red
Kairon@aol.com

I wouldn't be surprised if Nintendo suddenly realized that maybe they should have a more LIVE like online system setup, one that is is connected to your nintendo.com account and has all 3rd parties working to use the same system.

Maybe they are trying to finalize some tech that they want to implement fromt he start and it just isn't ready. But whatever it is they are gonna do, they really should at the very least, let the 3rd parties know about it and help them implement whataever system it is they are trying to get up and running.

But if I remember right, there were already several 3rd party games that were rumored/known to have online and we are just waiting for the official PR. So if I had to guess, Nintendo just doesn't want any modified/enhanced games on their current VC setup, as they have something else planned for those games.

I just think something fishy is going on with this whole online ordeal. I mean, way back in 2005, we were told we'd probably be seeing an online enabled sequel to Smash Bros. at the get-go. Now, we are a few months down, and the first thing we see is an online Pokemon game. There's nothing wrong with that, except we find out that other developers just got the dev-kits. What was Nintendo holding out for, and what would make SNK say what they did? I really think Nintendo's looking to control this harsher than we think. A third party developer can have a game published by Nintendo, and I think that's what they want: Online games exclusively released on their platform, and no where else. The only insurance for this is if they have publishing rights to the game, and that's what they're going to look for from the earliest competitive or co-op online developers.

But exclusive online games aren't advantages at all. It doesn't make any sense to me.

~Carmine "Cai" M. Red
Kairon@aol.com

It means that it will be an exclusive game only for them. Plain and simple, something the Wii has that no one else does.

I thought that was the Wiimote's job?

Besides, no matter how exclusive that game is, exclusive online games for the other consoles will be light years more impressive. There's no way they can win this through slugging-match tactics.

~Carmine "Cai" M. Red
Kairon@aol.com

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But exclusive online games aren't advantages at all. It doesn't make any sense to me.

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Is it just me, or does it seem Nintendo is starting to get super cocky again?

Reggie said Online kits were out. Elebits, a third-party game is online. And in an EA Interview with IGN, this was said:

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IGN: Have you explored an online mode?

Rich Rogers: Unfortunately, the online component for the Wii was released very late for our development so there is no online mode in Tiger Woods PGA TOUR 07 for the Wii.

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I'm pretty sure SNK meant that they couldn't put online into the VC games as Nintendo just wants VC to be pure ROM dumps. I remember Nintendo(or someone) saying something about a seperate channel(or something) for new or enhanced VC games.

Quote

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Originally posted by: BlackNMild2k1
I'm pretty sure SNK meant that they couldn't put online into the VC games as Nintendo just wants VC to be pure ROM dumps. I remember Nintendo(or someone) saying something about a seperate channel(or something) for new or enhanced VC games.

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I wouldn't listen to a damn thing SNK says because they'll say anything to blame Nintendo for their own lazyness. They're the ones who said that Metal Slug didn't support the Classic Controller because Nintendo didn't allow it. But that was complete bullsh!t since Dragon Ball Z for the Wii used the Classic Controller and came out a month before Metal Slug. So now SNK is saying Nintendo isn't allowing third parties to have online, just like they said Nintendo wasn't allowing anyone to use the Classic Controller.

So don't take anything SNK says seriously because they have no credibility and are proven lairs already.

I wonder if games released now will be less likely to get updated with online later.

"Is it just me, or does it seem Nintendo is starting to get super cocky again?"

Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

Honestly Nintendo being jerks to third parties doesn't seem like anything that ever went away really. Sony just started being worse and Nintendo found a formula that worked really well in Japan and third parties came because they felt they could make money.

If Nintendo is honestly blocking third party online games that's just insane, and I'm tired of Nintendo doing thing that make no sense whatsoever.

Being a controlling f*ckhead isn't going to do Nintendo any favours. They'll get third parties back because Sony is f*cking up but then what? If they continue as they always do eventually someone better will show up and third parties will bail again. Nintendo will never be able to hold the number one spot until they change. As they are they're always one goof up away from losing it all over again.

It's somewhat a shame that Sony has screwed up so much with the PS3. It has made it easier for Nintendo so they aren't learning anything. I think it would be better for them if the Wii had went against a strong PS3 and Nintendo had to compete by improving, instead of just being less bad than the competition.

Sony is failing for the same reasons Nintendo did back then so if they can learn a lesson they should learn it like this, too. Of course if what Mr. Stringer talked about is standard with all japanese companies (not just Sony) they may very well be incapable of learning.

I believe Reggie when he said that 3rd parties have the kits and are working on online games.

And I believe it because he seemed very uncertain when he had to answer the question that MP3 will have online, but was immediately certain when he was asked if online kits had shipped.

I agree that third parties definitely have the online dev-kits. However, I bet that the third party developers that received those kits are the ones that agreed to have some sort of publishing contract with Nintendo. This would be similar to how Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles was published by Nintendo, or a reason why Odama will always be Nintendo exclusive. I can't find other games like this right now, because gameFAQs is down, but I guarantee Nintendo likes to throw their weight around in attempts to be the publisher of third-party games.

" I wouldn't be surprised if Nintendo suddenly realized that maybe they should have a more LIVE like online system setup, one that is is connected to your nintendo.com account and has all 3rd parties working to use the same system."

I'd sure as hell be surprised if Nintendo would do something that nice.
Never. Going. To. Happen.
Nintendo + Online = Clueless.

"what in the world is going on with all this conflicting information"

Nothing is conflicting, Nintendo gave out Dev kits for online, noone has ever stated they are ANY GOOD
They are proberly just designed to interact with the normal dev kit, and allow swapping of online code into wii games and intergrate everyones fav online system: friend codes

Nothing do, with recoding a SNK games for online play
Wii Dev kit + Wii online kit = online snk game.... is proberly totally wrong, would be so many other factors