Topic: Being online isn't worth it. . .

[Gup]

I was just reading an article at Gamepro about PS2's worldwide network adaptor sales.  A total of 2.4 million units have been sold as of June 30. That number may seem big, but there are over 50 million PS2s worldwide which means only about 5% of PS2 owners are actually online. HAHAHAHAHAHAHA. . . sorry.  Alnyways during E3, Microsoft announced they had sold 350 000 units of Xbox Live worldwide, but (at the time) there were 13 million Xboxs which means less than 3% of Xbox owners are going online.  I guess I or we should bow my head down to Nintendo for making a smart business decision. . . although it still annoys me they aren't taking the next step.

[Michael_82]

it's funny, it seems like everyone wants it.  yet, not many want to pay for it.

[DRJ]

I would like to play online with GCN, but I dont want to pay anything for it. Thats why I like the LAN play idea better since it will just allow people to connect to another persons cube. Maybe there is money to be made, but let Sony and M$ waste their time and money finding out.

[Michael8983]

"Microsoft announced they had sold 350 000 units of Xbox Live worldwide"

Wow. That's the most pathetic thing I've ever heard.
I knew XBox Live wouldn't be the take-the-world-by-storm massive hit some deluded fans were hyping it as, but even I thought it would do better than that. Didn't MS spend a ton of money on this thing too? So why aren't MS investors going after Gates with torches and pitchforks yet?

[Lecter]

Whats the point of this post? To flame other console buyers because they like to play online? Who cares...I bought my PS2 with the online adapter and I love it. It would be awsome if my cube went online but it doesn't so it doesn't get as much play. Online gaming is cool just as long as it stays free, thats why I chose the ps2 over xbox, no way im paying monthly when I already pay the $50 for the game. But seriously back off the "oh this console has this and the gc doesnt so the gc is better"  

[RickPowers]

350,000 for a PAID SERVICE is outstanding.  You can't base it of typical game sales ... it's another animal entirely.

[WesDawg]

Still Rick, 3% of total user base is pretty insignificant. Especially when MS is trying to sell the whole thing like you're some sort of freak if you're not online. Like that's the only thing gamers want anymore. Its just not true. That's what people are getting pissed about. I'm sick of people  laughin' when Nintendo says that online isn't profitable and that the market for it really isn't that big. Geesh, if only 350,000 XBox owners are online, and you figure that even if half of 'em buy your game, you've only got 175,000 in sales from that. Not horrible, but certainly not a feature you're gonna spend years perfecting in your game. I think Nintendo does need to do something though, not because there's money to be made in the whole thing, but just cause their lack of Online support is making 'em look old and outdated. Funny, nobody wants to pay for online, but everyone wants to see it on the box of their console.

[Cooolcorey]

All about the image...

[Lecter]

Yeah but atleast they have online, its their choice let them play online if they want, its not for you to decide if its profitable or not, its entertainment.

[Uglydot]

Fun is fun is fun.  Some want that fun, some don't.  If they are making money, they will continiue, if now, then they won't.  Some losses to help us step into something great are expected.  Who cares if they aren't raking in the cash at the first step(DC and somewhat saturn don't count, it was free) .  Rick is right, 350k is a great number for a paid service.  Look at the uproar over IGN...PSO v2...even games like Everquest.  People hate monthly bills, yet 350k are willing to pay for this service, not a bad first step for a fledgling system.

[DarkView]

Online play seems to be like the classic steering wheel/gun problem. Its great in the store, but once you get it out of the box it gets boring fast. It gets old within days because no one supports it (Who would, your selling to the smallest fraction of the market) and even with new games its the same candy in a differnt wrapper.
Nintendo are smart to be extremely weary of online play. Stuff that doesnt come with the console rarely takes off, and multiplayer is the ultimate optional accessory.
Take a look at how they are handling the GBA adaptor, they are pumping it as much as they can because they know if they dont it will fade away. They realise a $20 cable wont sell, unless they make it so that on the back of 9 out of 10 of your favourite games there is a little "GBA Adaptor" logo. Then your bound to eventually get one, just for the few crappy bonuses.
They are making it so that you dont NEED the cable, but you want it. Then once everyone has the cable, they can start actually using it properly in games.
This is how they need to handle online gaming. They need to make it an option, and even when its pronounced dead still keep implementing it in games (And getting the third parties to keep pumping it aswell). Then when its got to the point where 5 out of 10 games with multiplayer also have an online multiplayer, people will start accepting it as the norm.
The main problem with that is online gaming doesnt work without a player base. Its very hard to gradually introduce it (Granted its not impossible, but still very hard). If you get online and find the games empty every time you go in, your going to stop going in. So what could Nintendo do about this? Well, they could start out by giving a % discount off the adaptor when you purchase a game that features online play. If they could manage to knock 20% off the adaptors, even if it meant increasing the price a little (People buy expensive stuff because its cheap), they would sell a lot more. More sales means more people are capable of joining the games willy-nilly.
Now to fill those empty online games. For starters a basic game package could come with the adaptors. Even just a pile of addictive oldschool games that can be played online would build enough of a base that when you get online there is something to do. Making those garenteed hits have an online mode wouldnt do any harm either.
Now, we need a way to get the people who arent fans of multiplayer to go online. How would we do that? Well, part of answer is in the aforementioned GBA adaptor.  You make it so that I can use my gamecube/GBA adaptor as a GBA hooked up to someone elses gamecube and Id be bound to have a crack at online play.

This post is completely flawed, and for the most part a rant, but I can garentee that Nintendo are thinking this in-depth about online play, and asking these questions (Plus a lot more). Why? Because Nintendo knows from experience optional accessories die fast and easy, and thats all Online play is. Heck, the GBA adaptor may just be a test too see if a successful optional accessory is even possible...

[NThumb]

Online gaming would be cool but it would suck for people with dial up. Not many pepople have $50 bucks to spend monthly on broadband and still be able to pay a games mountly fees. Dial up sucks because there would be to much lagging.

[HolyPaladin]

This whole matter just supports my argument that Nintendo knows what they are doing.  If only 3% or 5% of Gamecube owners had a modem or broadband adaptor, that would only be a user base of 300,000 to 500,000, which isn't much to sell any given online title to.  That means that, even if 100% of those people somehow decided that they will all rush out and buy Game X (replace with any name you like) at $50 a copy, that's only $15,000,000 to $25,000,000, but much of that will go to many different hands, especially including the stores, so the company making the game will only get a part of that, even though they spent at least $5 million to $10 million, sometimes over $20 million, making the game, which means little to no profit, or even loss of money.  The truth of the matter would be even worse if you consider that only part of those players that are online will buy that particular game, which means actually seeing much more modest sales than these, which translates to even more loss.

[Rhoq]

As a GameCube owner, I am not particularly interested in playing on-line. Although I would like to have the option available should I ever choose to purchase a Broadband adaptor for the Cube, since playing on-line sounds better to me than finding someone else that owns a GameCube and playing via a LAN connection. If only 5% of PS2 owners and 3% of X-Box owners are taking advantage of their machine's on-line capabilities, that tells me that all of the hype surrounding on-line gameplay is just that...HYPE.

I don't know, maybe it's just my age (I'm 27).

[Grey Ninja]

THANK GOD!

I had seriously thought for a while that I was about the only gamer in the world not even remotely interested in taking my console online.  I am very glad to see that most gamers seem to agree with me.    I mean, online gaming on a PC isn't even embraced by a majority of gamers.  It's unrealistic to think that online gaming on a console would be a profitable, or even a smart business decision at this point in time.

But the problem is all the media hype it gets.  Sites such as PGC and IGN hype internet gaming all the time, which I don't think is healthy.  Let's see if we can figure out why online gaming isn't the big splash that many seem to think it is, shall we?

Online gaming requires unlimited internet access for any kind of experience.  That rules out about 50% of non-North American countries.

Online gaming requires broadband internet access for a good experience.  That rules out about 90% of non-North American countries.

Online gaming requires extra hardware, such as a hub, or some technical know-how to get up and running.  That rules out about 50% of people (my best guess)

Online gaming requires you to pay for the services in the cases of currently available online games for all 3 consoles.  That requires a credit card and extra money.  There goes about 75% of gamers.

Need I go on?

Personally, I have all that except for a credit card.  I have no interest in MMORPGs, so it doesn't bother me for my PC online gaming fix.  I don't want to go online with my console because it's more hassle than what it's worth, and in general, I prefer multiplayer games on a single console, or the single player modes in games to the multiplayer parts.

[screamatorium]

I'm going to guess that less than 5% of gamecube users have used nintendo's alternative to online, which is the Lan link.  So before you laugh, take a look at your own system.  And if we're going to compare numbers, just look at console sales.  Yep, numbers can be misleading.  So if you're going to dismiss console and game sales numbers, why put so much credence in network adapter numbers?  I bet gba connectivity is just doing fantastic.

For all this talk about nintendo being a game company.... and ninteno being about fun games... I find it curious that so many of you defend Nintendo's decisions that don't have anything to do with fun.  Unless fun for you is watching old japanese ment get richer.  Nintendo's lack of online play is a business dicision... not a discision made based on what they think is fun.  You'll bash online play until nintendo officially backs it.  And then it will suddenly become fun and cool.  GBA connectivity is not a decision based on fun.  Its an idea born out of trying to make more money.  If connectivity really started as an idea to make things more fun... then were are the fun games?  The idea has been around since launch, and there has yet to be one fun and unique function that couldnt be done without it.  Smaller disk size... yet another idea based on money rather than fun.  Yes it shortens load time, but thats not their motivation for having the proprietary disk.  I'm not saying Nintendo isnt allowed to make money, I'm just saying, stop pretending that Nintendo is your friend.  If they thought putting your face on the side of a console and naming it "Billy is a retard" would improve sales, they would do it.  M$ indeed.  

On-line play is the future.  Its an inevitablility.  Nintendo is holding back because they'd rather sit back and let someone else do the leg work.  Nobody wants to be first, everybody wants to be second.  Thats the rule in business.  Its fine that nintendo wants to do that.  Just dont confuse them for the market leader anymore.    You know how theres always that movie studio that backs the risky film, and then suceeds.  Then the other studio's jump on the bandwagon and start making rip-offs as fast as possible.  It beginning to look like Nintendo is becomming the latter.  

Online play is fun.  If playing against other humans isnt fun, then ask your self why consoles come with more than one controller port.  Are you guys telling me you can't see the fun of challenging other board members to games of mario kart or smash brothers?  Having tournaments with people from around the world?  If someone on the board spouts off about how they are the greatest smash brothers player ever, you could actually challenge them to prove it.

Paying for online is alot like the early days of cable TV.  Back in the day (I'm sure many of you are to young to remember) paying for TV was considered akin to paying for air.  People said it would never work.  Now people on welfare, who can barely feed themselves, feel the need to pay 40$ a month for cable.  If online gaming brings the fun, people will pay.  Broadband gains ground everyday.  

[DRJ]

Online games may be the future, and they may not be. Only time will tell, but the bottom line is that right now the vast majority of gamers are not willing to pay anything for it. If Nintendo set up a free online network to play all of their games I would be all over it, but if they want a penny more than the $50 I pay for the game then forget it.

Also if the network cannot run well with dialup modems then it will fail. Broadband is still like $50 a month in my area so until that changes I will stick with dialup for $10 a month.

[Grey Ninja]

Quote
Originally posted by: screamatorium
I'm going to guess that less than 5% of gamecube users have used nintendo's alternative to online, which is the Lan link.  So before you laugh, take a look at your own system.  And if we're going to compare numbers, just look at console sales.  Yep, numbers can be misleading.  So if you're going to dismiss console and game sales numbers, why put so much credence in network adapter numbers?  I bet gba connectivity is just doing fantastic.

Actually, this statement leads me to believe that you don't own a GameCube.  The number of people using the LAN link on GameCube right now is exactly ZERO.  Reason being that not one single game that uses this is available on the market yet.  The rest of that paragraph just doesn't make sense.  Console sales numbers are being compared with network adaptor sales, yielding the percentage of users that are taking their consoles online.  In the PS2's case, this is 5%, and in the Xbox's case, it is 3%.  There's nothing wrong with that math.  If I had to guess, I would put the GameCube at about 1 - 2%, for the reason of PSO, which in case you didn't know, is GameCube's flagship online title, and will be getting an exclusive sequel shortly.

[DarkView]

Quote
Originally posted by: screamatorium
Online play is fun.  If playing against other humans isnt fun, then ask your self why consoles come with more than one controller port.  Are you guys telling me you can't see the fun of challenging other board members to games of mario kart or smash brothers?  Having tournaments with people from around the world?  If someone on the board spouts off about how they are the greatest smash brothers player ever, you could actually challenge them to prove it.

Playing against a human is great in my oppinion, however playing against a random opponent halfway across the world isnt. I dont even consider playing against others online as being me vs humans. Like I said, thats my oppinion.
Picture smash brothers online, now what do you see? Sitting around playing against others having fun, right? Now think about that. Will it really be like you pictured? You wont be talking with the players, you'll just be fighting a faceless no one. It will be like plugging in the second controller and playing yourself, but with a little challange.
Online gaming is (part of) the future, just not the future of consoles.

On a happier note, at least online play for Sony will never take off. No casual gamer is going to pay a monthly fee, and without the casual gamers the Sony gamer base is about 25 people and a cat.

[Uglydot]

Personally, I wouldn't mind the option to have a little extra fun out of my games.  Why praise old men for saving money so we get fewer options?  Why in hell to do we nock other companies for giving more options?  Nintendo has sold plenty of useless crap, I have yet to buy a gba link or regret it.  When Nintendo began requireing the expansion pack for a few games, I didn't buy it.  I am sure those things were nice to have, I simply don't have the extra funds for it, but I do appreciate the option.  

And games can be made to play alright over a 56k, if the developers try hard enough.  And if rate limits are set well.  I played on quake 3 for DC with almost no lag till the broad band adaptor came out.  Just had to find the right server and it was fine.  Alien Front online also played well, and PSO always played fine, just a few seconds more loading time.  Broad band is the way to go if possible, though.

[screamatorium]

Actually I do own a cube.  I also own a ps2, with no network adapter, and a dreamcast which I used to play PSO.  Actually I've owned every nintendo system except for the virtual boy.  I had no idea that there are no games that use the system link.  System to system linking has been around since at least the ps1, so I assumed something would be using it.  Actually I think its kind of sad that no game uses it, considering they're trying to push it as an alternative.  They're not making people buy proprietary cables are they?  I dont have 2 tvs sitting in my room, so I dont really care.  In the end all the link cable adds is another screen and four more controllers.  Its not really an alternative for anything.

And when did I ever say anything about the math?  My point is that some people are all a twitter about the low number of network adapters sold, yet they constantly dismiss the low sales of the gamecube and its software.  If sales numbers dont matter then, why should they matter now?  And if network adapter numbers show nintendo to be smart, what do the vastly more important console and software sales show nintendo to be?  If all the game companies were going to be "smart" like nintendo, we'd never have online games because no company would be willing to make the first step and create the infrastructure and user base.

Frankly, I dont even play online that much.  But I also dont play other people in real life very often either.  I prefer solo gaming.  But I can see that online gaming will be important.  If you like playing multi-player games, there no reason why you wouldnt like playing multiplayer online.

As for whoever it was that was talking about faceless noones... I see you dont have a problem talking on a forum with faceless noones.  Online games have buddy lists, and others have live chat features to take care of the faceless noones that you speak of.  You ever have a friend that lives far away from you? You put him on your buddy list, and there goes the problem with the facelss noones.   And nothing says you can't make freinds online.  Ever heard of guilds or teams?  If your good enough at a game, you may get an invite to try out for a guild.  Guilds often have their own web sites and reputations.  If your team is good enough you can become well known.  I think that makes up for the loss of not being able to punch your opponent in the shoulder and giggle like girls.  

[Lecter]

I'm so glad I rarely post on the GameCube section of the forums and stick to General Chat. There way too many close-minded GC gamers in here. Who cares if Online Gaming doesn't profit, the people that do play online are having FUN which is all that matters. In the gamers eye games are supposed to entertain, while the companies make profit by selling games. You dont have to play online if you dont want to, but if theres a cool racing game or something your friends have you can all play together over the net. GC doesn't have that option and its not a smart buisness decision beceause look at the sales. My main point, this topic should have ended ages ago. If you want to play online go ahead, if not dont and dont try to make people that do play online think that the GC is better because it cant go online, because its not.

[oohhboy]

I think all of you are missing the point. No one has aperciated the fact that Nintendo has not jumped on to online like a whore on a customer.

It was a business decision to not go online because of one thing - profit. They have to make money. No money, no company. Nintendo or Sony don't have a bottomless pit full of money to chuck into another bottomless pit. No company = No fun.

But then hasn't Nintendo promised us a fully functional network for FREE? Sure, it is a shame that we can't go online now and have some fun. But why should we have to pay for it when traditionaly PC gamers never have? If PSO was free online and the fact it can run off a 56K fine, I would have gotten it.

Sony rushed out with thier service. But it has so far been pretty half assed and suffers from extensive cheating. Yes I would love to be headshot through the wall from a K away.

Xbox has somewhat gotten around that problem by locking out offending Xboxes. But what happens to the guy who buys a second hand one that has been locked out. Hell if XBL was free and Xboxes were cheap and I had BB,  I would get one.

[DRJ]

Sony and M$ have a lot of money from the other products that their companies make. Nintendo only makes games. They need to be very careful were the put their money. If they dump tons of cash into something like online gaming and lose they are f#@#ed. And it is not only Nintendo that is worried about making online games. PSO I&II are out, but what other third parties are willing to make a game to play online for Nintendo.

Its funny and sad, that Nintendo can come up with things like Lan play on a free network, GBA connectivity etc. and everyone bitches about nintendo being stupid. Then they dont make a online network that you have to pay for, that very few people would sign up for and everyone bitches some more.

If you want to play online get a PC or a XBox. If you want to play quality games get a GCN. If you want to play RPGs get a PS2. This way you have everything.

Myself, I have:
a PC for online games: Warcraft III and Diablo II
GCN for kick ass games: MP, WW, SSBM, SMS, OOT, Mario Party 4, Star Fox, Pikmin.
XBox for: Halo and umm... well just Halo, but something else will be out soon i suppose
GBA-SP + GBP for retro gaming

Just go out and get the system that does what you want. Dont complain because one system doesnt do everything that you want.

[screamatorium]

Anyone who thinks nintendo is going offer free online play needs to put down the pipe.  Nintendo has said over and over again that the reason why they havent gone online is because they cant see how they can make money off of it.  Nintendo will may you pay, one way or another.  A company so desperately afraid of losing money is not going to maintain servers for free.

And if the network your talking about is the system link, nintendo didnt "think up" anything.  Every system has it.  And its not an alternative to online play.   All the link adds is another screen and four more controllers.  And you dont have to pay for every sony online game.  Its up to the game developer to decide to charge you to play online.  Just like with pc's.  Unless Nintedo goes with something like the xbox live, its going to be the same way with nintendo.  It will be up to each developer to choose whether to charge you or not.  If nintendo forces every developer to have free online, then it will be yet another reason for 3rd parties to stay away.  

No company = no fun for fanboys.  There are other systems you know.  Nintendo isn't your friend.  You dont own stock in Nintendo.  And Nintendo isnt on such shaky ground that they cant afford to push an online strategy.  

And cheating is a problem on every system.  Any system with a gameshark will have online cheating of some sort.  Everytime someone comes up with a fix, someone else comes up with an exploit.