Topic: Mario Kart comfirmed! or comfirmed?

[PaLaDiN]

That's great and all, but I just don't think now is the time to be wasting dev time on online... because whether you want to admit it or not, the DS is suffering a shortage of titles. Adding online is prolonging that shortage. Once Nintendo deals with the shortage problem, then they can knock themselves out on online... I won't mind that much. The thing is that the DS does not have a system seller yet. Mario Kart could be the first, online or no online... which is why I think it needs to come out as soon as possible, before Sony releases one of their own. If that means sacrificing online, then I'm all for it.

If Nintendo was making a GC title online I wouldn't really care, I'd live with it. But that's because the GC already has a lot of titles and amazing games.

"you could go to Starbucks, or any other local wifi hot spot, (And theres tons of those in USA)"

We still don't know if Starbucks is on board. That would be cool and would help the problem somewhat, but at this point it's still jumping to conclusions, right?

It seems there's still a lot of confusion as to just how much time online takes, how much Gamespy is helping and how exactly Nintendo is planning this whole thing. I think I'll just wait to find out more for now...  

[Artimus]

Paladin, it has occured to me you don't even understand how wifi works. Starbucks doesn't need to be 'on board'. Most hotspots don't have password protection, they just carefully limit their range to instore. Starbucks doesn't have to do anything. Understand? ANYONE can play the DS online if they have it at home, or at a local coffee shop. I grew up in a very rural area (1000 people in my town) and the libraries even had wifi access. Maybe you need to understand the concepts before you bicker about them.

Also, I don't find any denial about a lack of games. In another thread I called it the DS's sole problem. I have been critical of it. I've sat watching reviews be mediocre and once again decide I didn't want that game. I haven't touched my DS in a month. I own one game. A port. It sucks. Trust me, I know better than you what the shortage is like. Seeing how I actually own the system. But in the next few months we have:

Pac Pix
Polarium
Egg Monster Hero
Kirby
Bomberman
Meteos
Nanostray
Metroid Prime
Castlevania

Those are just the potential big sellers from now til the end of summer. When you consider Mario Kart isn't coming out until after then, not such a big deal. The current MK release date still stands as sometime in November. The difference between November and September is nil. It's not coming out this spring regardless, so this delay you keep talking about doesn't exist.

You're blinding yourself to what exists already. Instead of imagining the possibilities you're resigned to the problems that exist now. Open your mind a little, bub.

[PaLaDiN]

Forgive my ignorance, but I was under the impression that password protection and security for hotspots were actually on the rise now, and I know that a year ago Starbucks was offering Wifi to T-Mobile and Telstra subscribers as part of their services, which means they have control over which users they allow online. You had to pay for the service... it wasn't free. Did they change that now?

And that's a nice list but none of those games are as big as Mario Kart and you know it. My point still stands.

[silentbob]

kirby, castlevania and metroid prime are as big as mario kart, if not bigger. stop being a butt and be like "yay online play is coming wooo"

[Cleon_I]

Just my opinion, but Mario Kart without online wouldn't be worth a purchase for me.  Mario Kart is all about the multiplayer party fun (my friends have spent days playing MK64, and I bought MK:SC and MK: DD both at release so I could play them with my friends.  I even hooked up 3 Gamecubes to a LAN and invited over 7 other people just so I could try out DD's LAN play.  So far, no one I know has bought a DS besides me, so if MK DS had no online I'd be stuck with just 1p GP and time trials... which bore the heck out of me.

On the topic of whether it should be on-line or on-time, my opinion is that delays are less harmful than reduced functionality.  Everyone has the ability to wait longer, but no one can go in and add new features after a game has been released.  From Nintendo's perspective, the people who care about multiplayer gaming are more likely to pick up a copy if it has online gaming, and the people who don't give a crap about it will probably still buy it.  Also, since this is the first iteration of Mario Kart to have support for online play, it could potentially be a strong system-seller.  A small few may decide to give up on the DS because of the delay, but this will be more than made up by people who are drawn in by the promise of online play.  So, it's a win-win situation for Nintendo.

Paladin, my advice to you is to either suck it up and wait for Nintendo to release the game when they've finished it, or look elsewhere for your kart-racing fix.  There's certainly no shortage, and I know you can't have played all of them.  Meanwhile, whining about it accomplishes nothing other than irritating the other members of this forum. (granted, you're entitled to your opinion, but I think at this point you've made your opinion clear.)

[Bloodworth]

Quote
Originally posted by: KDR_11k
Adding online would not delay the title significantly

Please? I've seen figures that estimate online play takes about 1/3rd of a game's development time to implement properly and test thoroughly.

The difference is that we're talking about games that are already being designed for a wireless multiplayer structure that has to handle up to sixteen players and potential lag over various distances.  I know there are additional concerns with online, but I'm fairly confident that "one third" figure probably includes creating new modes of play, multiplayer maps, and processing data from all of the different players.   That number likely also came from PC developers who additionally have to worry about ironing out communications between different system architectures and operating systems - a concern that doesn't apply to dedicated devices.

[Bloodworth]

Quote
Originally posted by: silentbob
kirby, castlevania and metroid prime are as big as mario kart, if not bigger. stop being a butt and be like "yay online play is coming wooo"

Metroid Prime Hunters might be as big or bigger than Mario Kart, depending on how well it turns out.  Kirby and Castlevania?  Good games, but no match for Mario Kart when it comes to popularity.
 

[silentbob]

okay.
metroid prime is as big as mario kart, if not bigger (because it came with all the dSs dUh). stop being a butt and be like "yay online play is coming wooo"

[Blackknight131]

Mario Kart scheduled for release in the US in the Fall..according to Reggie it will be the DS' flagship title for that period.
So, likely October or November.
As such, there are about 4-5 months btwn now and then that can be used solidly for programming that game (I cut out a month or two for manufacturing and distribution).

...Yea, I would be surprised if Mario Kart DS wasn't Online.
Particularly in the face of Nintendo's GDC statements where they claimed:

1)that wireless kits would be in the hands of developers by E3 (which by extension, would mean their own first party teams will have had them prior, perhaps even before now.)

2)that it would be very easy for developers to expand their LAN-enabled multiplayer games to support the Nintendo-Gamespy server infrastructure using the new dev kits.

It would seem tho that the DS' Summer flagship Metroid Hunters is indeed out of that possible window (unless online-ready kits were available for NST from the beginning of this year)...ah well -__-

BTW, GAWDDAMIT PalAdin!!!

...rockin' avatar.
Like some Viewtiful Samus or something.

Sweetness.

[couchmonkey]

Okay...The way I see it, Nintendo is determined to release this game for the holiday season.  Yes it would be nice to have it now but that's not going to happen anyway because Nintendo wants this to be the flagship title for the holidays.  It's stupid, but even if the game were ready for launch today, I bet Nintendo would save it until fall anyway.  That's a business decision, and probably a good one because having brand-new popular games for the holidays will be key to outselling PSP in a period when the stakes are much higher than they are right now.

So since we'll be waiting for six more months no matter what, I think it's reasonable to expect online play.  And I also think it's a good move for the game to be online because Nintendo needs a mainstream title to promote the DS' online capabilities.  Animal Crossing online will be awesome, but it won't sell the DS like Mario Kart online.  If this was really a question of having the game right now or having it in October, then I might feel differently but I don't think Nintendo is delaying just for online, I think it's a business strategy that Nintendo will follow even if the game is offline and almost done.


P.S. Actually, I wouldn't feel any differently even if the game could be available right now.  I'm in love with Wario Ware and Yoshi Touch N Go and I don't need anything else for a month or two.  Seriously, don't skip these games because of the reviews.  Rent them if you're worried about the whole length thing.  In the worst case scenario you'll have fun playing them to death and getting some use out of your DS, in the best case scenario you'll realize they're awesome and add them to your collection.

[Ian Sane]

The main reason I want Mario Kart to be online is because without it there's a very high chance that Mario Kart DS would be redundant.  It would just be more of the same.  Mario Kart is getting stale.  Even though Double Dash made a good attempt to change things up with the two riders thing when playing it I just felt that I had played it all before.  I think the Mario Kart formula has for the most part run its course and it's time to give it a rest until something comes along that would add enough to the design to justify its revival.  Online is one of those features that Mario Kart doesn't have yet that would shake things up a fair bit and would justify a sequel.  Without it Mario Kart DS is just Mario Kart 64/Super Circuit yet again.  I don't want another Mario Kart that doesn't do anything different.  You can either get a generic uninteresting Mario Kart expansion pack in a few months or a legitimate sequel in a few more months.