Topic: Nintendo Announces Wii Pay & Play for the Wi-Fi Connection

[Deguello]

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.

[Infernal Monkey]

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.

[Shift Key]

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.

[that Baby guy]

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.

[Darkheart]

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.

[Flames_of_chaos]

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.

[DAaaMan64]

I seriously thought that Logo was just a joke.

[Pale]

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.

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.

[that Baby guy]

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.

[Flames_of_chaos]

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.

[Athrun Zala]

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...

[MegaByte]

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.

[PaLaDiN]

Ha. Ha ha.

[darknight06]

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.