Nintendo To Begin Charging Money For Some Online Gaming ?

[tongue_of_colicab]

http://blog.wired.com/games/

Nintendo's Wi-Fi Connection service has always been entirely free of charge, but the company will soon introduce a pay-to-play service for some games, it announced at Game Developers Conference.

"Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection Pay And Play" will let users subscribe on a game-by-game basis to certain titles. Nintendo project leader Takashi Aoyama announced the service at GDC, but did not say what upcoming games would require payment for the service, or how much they would cost.

To avoid customer confusion, Pay-And-Play games will have a red icon on the game's box that reads Pay And Play, in place of the traditional blue Wi-Fi Connection icon, which will only be used for games that are free to play.

This is a pretty big change for Nintendo, who has always been adamant about wanting online gameplay to be free. While this might attract more developers to the service with a new revenue stream, it also might confuse consumers -- and be a hassle if the payment system isn't easy. You'll use Wii Points to pay for the online gaming, so it should be interesting to see if this extends to the DS Lite or if it's just restricted to Wii.

Doesnt sound to good IMO. Nintendo always said Nintendo online would be free, not to mention their online service isnt exactly what one would call good with the whole friendcode system and all.

I suppose nintendo wouldnt be so stupid to start charging money for their own online games. Maybe they know something we dont and there are MMO's coming? I can see why they want some kind of payment system than. The thing im worried about is what happens if alot of devs start asking money. It will get expensive and messy as you have to keep track on what you payed for and it will be expansive if you dont play so much online with certain games. Atleast with xbox live you pay 60 dollars or so and you are done with it for all the games.

On the plus side downloadable content is coming for both wiiware and disc based games.

 

[Mobius1aic]

It would be better to have a standardized approach like with Xbox Live. Pay once, it takes care of all your online gaming needs for the time being. It should never be on a game-by-game basis unless it's an MMO........

 

[cthellis42]

Sounds like a good idea to me! I mean, Nintendo has already proven their dedication to excellent online support last gen, and have a huge number of flawless online-enabled games on the Wii and DS, which we would be perfectly happy to pay for! I can see no flaws with such a plan! Right, guys?

...guys?

 

[AlNom]

What's to say every publisher out there will slap on a fee for online play? It's the same situation with PSN's model right now, is it not?

 

[Scott_Arm]

I don't see anyone charging for online gaming except for MMOs. This is essentially no different than the PC and PS3 space ... sorry Live, but you cost money.

Hopefully this actually means there will be some big mmo titles for the Wii. Animal Crossing?

 

[cthellis42]

People already expect to subscribe to MMO's, however, and they already did so on the Gamecube. (The majority of the online gaming support right there with Phantasy Star. Ugh...) Promoting and branding a service for it, I think, simply sends the wrong idea, and is plenty unnecessary.

 

[Scott_Arm]

Well, I guess they want people to be aware of which games require subscriptions, and they're providing a unified way of paying for those games. Doesn't sound so bad to me. I could be wrong. I haven't read anything other than that little blurb.

Edit:

Now MMOs and other subscription based games will be clearly marked with an orange Wi-Fi "Pay to play" logo, and they will all be billed in a unified way. That doesn't sound confusing to me, and it doesn't sound bad either. If anything it will just prevent people from taking a game home from the store that they didn't realize required some type of service fee.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

What's to say every publisher out there will slap on a fee for online play? It's the same situation with PSN's model right now, is it not?

AFAIK there aren't any subscription games on PSN yet. What bothers me with this statement is the fact there's so few online enabled games as it is, and they're talking about charging for some of them. Well, a few games that are Pay and Play will end up all of 'em!

I guess the reality is certain devs want a subscription model, which is fair (and supported on PSN of course). You know something like the SIMS in a persistent world is going to want transactions. How will payment be handled though? I don't know what state the Wii OS is at to support that sort of thing. TBH I thought it was basically non-existent with everything handled per title. Will it be a case of individual games implementing their own individual solutions?

 

[AlNom]

Promoting and branding a service for it, I think, simply sends the wrong idea, and is plenty unnecessary.

Perhaps, but wouldn't avoiding the backlash from an "unexpected" introduction of fees be worth it? By declaring it now, some people will be disappointed, but once they see that most publishers aren't doing it, people will just shrug it off.

PSN is structured the same way, and most people attribute free online play with it despite the possibility that some non-MMO game will have a charge.

 

[Zassk]

This makes total business sense. They have a runaway success in the Wii. It makes total sense to exploit this success by increasing the number of revenue streams. I'm sure Nintendo is salivating at the thought of getting a cut from Rock Band-style weekly DLC or WoW-scale monthly subscriptions. Perhaps the Wii Fit even has some kind of microtransaction incoming.

 

[cthellis42]

Well, I guess they want people to be aware of which games require subscriptions, and they're providing a unified way of paying for those games. Doesn't sound so bad to me. I could be wrong. I haven't read anything other than that little blurb.

They already have a "unified way" in place regarding the virtual titles, don't they? They may not be actively- or even recently-developed games, but to the user it's a simplified process, "unified-enough" certainly, and has to handle payments to many different publishers (potentially developers?) though it.

Also, considering the Wii has no hard drive and Nintendo has consistently stated their non-support of large storage for the platform, it would be hard for them to support any conventional MMO, so we're pretty much only left with "MMO-lite" gaming experiences, which are far more likely to make their own workarounds so that they don't incur massive bandwidth bills. Guild Wars certainly handles it with aplomb, and that's a game with online multiplayer complexity we're unlikely to see on the Wii... in is subscription-free.

I just find that promoting and branding a service sends the wrong message to the public, especially since Nintendo has historically been--and currently still is--extremely lackluster with their online support. They've got some neat and unique Channels right now, but nothing I can see requiring a subscription fee or a distinct service to run it.

 

[cthellis42]

Perhaps, but wouldn't avoiding the backlash from an "unexpected" introduction of fees be worth it? By declaring it now, some people will be disappointed, but once they see that most publishers aren't doing it, people will just shrug it off.

PSN is structured the same way, and most people attribute free online play with it despite the possibility that some non-MMO game will have a charge.

Amusingly, I actually think that works to Sony/PSN's advantage right now. It puts it all directly in the hands of the 3rd parties with that, while Sony can stand back and say "hey, we're just all about freedom!" It also puts a speedbump in front of developers to support that kind of system themselves, which makes them more prone to shrugging it off and either going without or monkeying with the current DLC model that's out there, which benefits me as the consumer. Hehe...

 

[DeadlyNinja]

This is very interesting. I just found out some of SE's Crystal Engine features could run on Wii. Could it be that they're making an MMO game on the Wii? It sounds like something they would do. I guess people might pay to play some SE MMORPG or something.

 

[Johnny Awesome]

Nintendo. Shame on you. It won't be long before Sony is charging either. It's inevitable. These companies have to make money.

 

[cthellis42]

It's inevitable, after a fashion... I'm just hoping they delay long enough to get out of this generation without it on games that don't need it, and look more toward PC models. (Enough people have been grousing about Live's issues of late as well, so there's always hope.)

I don't care what people monetize, as long as it's optional. I do NOT stand for holding online play itself hostage. If you're going to charge a subscription, then you damn well better be offering what the MMO's that DO charge a subscription do... I don't sense that, though. I sense much more that certain parties will simply try to leverage their popular titles to include a slow bleed.

Also, if you're a competitive online environment with free play but a "subscription model" that makes your character 5x better... Congratulations, you're still using coercion!

 

[AlNom]

Amusingly, I actually think that works to Sony/PSN's advantage right now. It puts it all directly in the hands of the 3rd parties with that, while Sony can stand back and say "hey, we're just all about freedom!" It also puts a speedbump in front of developers to support that kind of system themselves, which makes them more prone to shrugging it off and either going without or monkeying with the current DLC model that's out there, which benefits me as the consumer. Hehe...

Exactly! Some folks were worried back when they finally got around to PS2 online connectivity because they announced the same sort of pay to play structure, leaving it up to the other publishers. And today we see that no one has really dared to require paying to play online, which may be due in large part to Sony not doing it for their own published titles.

 

[Afrikan]

Nintendo. Shame on you. It won't be long before Sony is charging either. It's inevitable. These companies have to make money.

yeah....they families to feed......

but seriously, I hope Sony stays the course..... and I think they will..... this might be another example where Sony's *perceived* arrogance might benefit the gamers....

 

[cthellis42]

I wouldn't actually mind if some things had a minor charge, though, like dedicated servers. They probably shouldn't launch a game with it to begin with, but in the end if it's a choice between paying a minor charge to continue to have the dedicated servers supported beyond the lifespan of what the dev/pub would normally want, then why not?

That being said, dedicated servers also shouldn't be the ONLY option. Again, even if a game doesn't have it in place at launch, it should really be patched in later on to be able to continue to exist on a peer basis even if the dedicated servers are taken offline. (Again, why not?)

 

[tongue_of_colicab]

I guess the reality is certain devs want a subscription model, which is fair (and supported on PSN of course). You know something like the SIMS in a persistent world is going to want transactions. How will payment be handled though? I don't know what state the Wii OS is at to support that sort of thing. TBH I thought it was basically non-existent with everything handled per title. Will it be a case of individual games implementing their own individual solutions?

Payment for online will be done with wii points. Downloadable content will also be payed with wii points.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

This makes total business sense. They have a runaway success in the Wii. It makes total sense to exploit this success by increasing the number of revenue streams. I'm sure Nintendo is salivating at the thought of getting a cut from Rock Band-style weekly DLC or WoW-scale monthly subscriptions. Perhaps the Wii Fit even has some kind of microtransaction incoming.

In this respect the question mark hangs over whether Nintendo's breed of casual gamers are into subscriptions per game or not. Microtransactions for added content, sure. Subscription to a service like Live! that provides broad functions and games is something else, and has its detractors. But n dollars per month to play a game? Out of the millions and millions of PC owners, how many chose to pay a subscription fee for a game? Subscription to a service like Live! is one thing, but subscription to individual games is quite different. The Wii-owning population is unknown in that regard. Even hardcore markets aren't that free in coughing up their subscriptions, and we've seen a move away from subscription models to free-to-play models in an attempt to attract bigger populations.

I can appreciate Nintendo and friends wanting to give it a go of course! But I'm not sure the market could be looked on as an easy milking ground; it may be a lot dryer than the inhabitants of other pastures.