Why Nintendo’s online gaming paranoia could kill the Wii

[T3kNi9e]

i wish to counter this. i think its some of a bit more than half of 360 owners dont have it hooked up to the internet. 360 has oblivion, which can be hundreds of hours on its own, bioshock, forza2, dmc4, ect. what the online really does is keeps people playing for hours on end every day, without it people can still find much entertainment, just they wont be hooked like youll find online gears players, halo players, or cod4 players are.

True, with 17.7 million 360's sold (last recorded) only 10 million even have an account. From those 10 million not all of them are gold subscribers, so that means more than 7.7 million 360 owners do not play online.

 

[wezeles]

Like I said your still talking about the majority using it, with 60% of the people that own a 360 also use online. And thouse numbers came out in January, Thats pretty impressive, it's probably more by now. It shows even beyond the #1 multi player online setup they have a good chunk of people with access to the other features of online such as the download content and chat.
What kind of sales have they had with arcade/marketplace so far? I havent came across a sales figure yet. Without these online customers and sales of online games and products Xbox would be a mear shadow of what it is today. Ignoring that makes you a real fanoy. :wink:

I guarantee you Nintendo is no where Near these numbers for users with online, even when its offered Free and with more consoles on the market. I know both my brothers in law don't have it, even after they saw what you can do with it on my systems. Heck I even gave one of them the Nintendo dongle to hook it up and he ended up never using it.
Maybe as more features come out like Wii-ware and stuff but honestly I don't think the "casual" gamer will get hooked on the Online/DLC untill it is a key player and not just an extra for a console, which isn't going to be this generation.

You have to understand all 3 systems have their die hard fans, the people that want every option offered, and everything given to them improved apon. But this is not the majority this is the smaller amount of fans that buy up everything. The key with xbox is these same minority of fans acctually direct the way the console does move forward, and the casual gamers on the 360 acctually follow suit with the die hard fans if they want to or not because that is what MS offers. Probably why alot of people end up listing the 360 as the "hardcore" console.

Nintendo on the other hand follows the majority and the majority of online users mainly hop online for a VC game so far. Even then it's not huge numbers when related to console sales.
http://kotaku.com/352869/virtual-console-downloads-at-10-million-iwata-explains-wii-shortage

If the sales of online games where better or when the DLC increases in sales that is when Nintendo will invest more in online. If you want more online honestly you have to start buying up more online products, good or bad, you have to show Nintendo its worth it for them to continue to invest in online, otherwise they will not take the risk if its not needed.

 

[linuxghost]

If Nintendo doesn't make advances in online capability within the next year, I certainly will be buying a PS3 or 360, and I'm sure many others with my mindset will as well.

I do think it will get a lot better, though. WiiWare alone is solid evidence of this, in my opinion.

Those people saying, "WII NEVER HAS HAD ONLINE AS A FOCUS AND NEVER WILL," are in denial, in my opinion.

 

[wezeles]

They focus on online, they just don't toss it on every random game to help it to sell. I would say Nintendo is doing a Good job of online acctually. Games like Strikers,SSBB,Mari Kart,BW2,Endless Ocean all are improved with the online service provided. Maybe it's not the best online but it does help the games along in a simple user friendly setup.

I think more people are upset about things such as DLC and Voice taking so long, and the bad setup of friends codes for online. But again this is Nintendo's first time making online games for a console, They are trying to make sure all the customers are happy and at the same time balance the gain to loss ratio off these add on's. This is still a minority sales area for Nintendo.

If anything we should be upset with 3rd partys lack of online support like with games such as Rock Band, Worms, Redsteel,Blazing Angles, Need for speed ect. ect. They are all pretty use to the concept of online games making them for other consoles and PC's. These are the games that could and should have been online no question.
I know Nintendo wasn't a huge supporter at first of getting these games online untill they themself got some out. But it has been some time since you could say that, and the attitude twards the Wii "still after great sucess" from the 3rd party is the main issue with most owners. Everyone else get's support why not the Wii version?

You can try to blame Nintendo all you want but really they are the only ones atleast trying to make it better. It's the 3rd party Publishers that are screwing the Wii owners over, which to me makes no sense with the great sales of consoles and games on the Wii in such short time.

Profit suicide I tell ya, Profit suicide.

 

[Big_League_Slugger]

Online won't kill the Wii but it hurts it.

I have SSBB and its a great game but there isn't much to keep me going back. I play online with my friends and it gets boring. I'm not going to use 3rd party to talk to them when I could play a 360 or PS3 game with them and have more fun.

It would be nice if the Wii had Voice, DLC, No Friendcodes, and not some many kid games.

 

[wezeles]

Online won't kill the Wii but it hurts it.

I have SSBB and its a great game but there isn't much to keep me going back. I play online with my friends and it gets boring. I'm not going to use 3rd party to talk to them when I could play a 360 or PS3 game with them and have more fun.

It would be nice if the Wii had Voice, DLC, No Friendcodes, and not some many kid games.

Ya but then it would be called 360 ha ha.. For what it does and who it's mainly directed at "new and casual gamers" it works well, Its not everything in one box but then again none of the consoles are. If you want all the best gaming has to offer you have to buy everything, all there is to it.

No one console does everything better or worse, they just each do it different from eachother, and they all offer us the best of specifc area's.

It's called variety without it we would be bored and there would be no point of 3 consoles being on the market.

 

[Subarnu]

Hear hear!

 

[T3kNi9e]

Remember when back in the day variety meant the games you could played on different consoles. Now days people think features are what seperate consoles.

Remember SNES vs Genesis? N64 vs PSone?

They were basically the same things, but different consoles had different games, yet no one cried back then.

Well of course with the obvious one that PSone had CD's so they could store more info, but in the end the games were basically the same, just on different consoles. So when it came down to what console to buy, it depended on what games you wanted.

 

[wezeles]

It still is that way, not so much for different games this time, but for each genre of games.

A lot of 3rd party now dedicate themself to one genre and one console and then give the leftovers to the others. Thats why you see better FPS/Sports games on 360, Better RPG/Fantasy games on PS3, and better Adventure and Party games on Wii.
They all offer some of these different game genres sure, but each dominate a corner of the market thats plain to see.
It's not that they can't play the other games, the games just seem to follow the majority of their own fanbase which all seem to preffer a specifc console.

This ends up screwing over the real "hardcore" gamers, the ones that acctually like playing every different genre of games. The real hardcore gamers end up having to buy a mixture of Consoles/PC just to be satisfied.

 

[T3kNi9e]

Better sports on 360? I wouldn't say that because they're all the same on all consoles, except for the Wii of course.

FPS, once again not really either. I think people get this misconception because of Halo. Seriously, look at most of the FPS games out there... They're on all consoles... Well, atleast 360/PS3/PC

Better RPG/Fantasy on the PS3, I guess I agree. But I agree because there's ALOT of JRPG's out on the PS3. Since Japanese do not like the 360, then they do not create many JRPGs on the 360. Maybe the developers don't dislike 360, but any smart game developer is not going to release a JRPG on te 360. But as for Western RPGs, I think 360 has more/better.

I completely agree with your last paragraph in every way. This is was forced me to get all 3. Which kind of sucks for me lol. 3 consoles = $$$

 

[sagema]

I said this once, and many times before I shall say it again. It's not Nintendo that's the problem. The problem is Japan. Ever play Final Fantasy 11 online? How about PSO where you can't use the word, "shoes" in a chat room? Don't forget the outright lack of voice chat for Resident Evil Online 1&2! MGS3 Online was a great step forward, but that game had no chat room! Look at any Japanese online game on the market, and notice the lack of the basics.

As I said before the problem isn't Nintendo. The problem is Japan itself. They need to change their mentality before making any more online games.

 

[T3kNi9e]

Since Nintendo is a Japanese owned company it's still Nintendo. Doesn't matter if there is a Nintendo of America, thats just one part of the company. But the Japanese are the head of it.

So it doesn't matter if Nintendo of America wants it. Japan is where it makes most of the money to so they will meet the demands of the Japanese the most. Plus alot of casual old farts are buying the Wii's up so Nintendo is still doing good here without online. So if they are making good money here with the casuals and Japanese think online is "nerdy" there's no point in there eyes to do it.

Which is why I really like 360 being a American company because they look to the needs of Americans first, while the Japanese suffer.

 

[wezeles]

Better sports on 360? I wouldn't say that because they're all the same on all consoles, except for the Wii of course.

FPS, once again not really either. I think people get this misconception because of Halo. Seriously, look at most of the FPS games out there... They're on all consoles... Well, atleast 360/PS3/PC

Well for the FPS 360 offers more no question, and the sports/FPS are way more fun on a 360 just for the sheer number of people online. Online is what makes these games great and xbox live has the largest online community, so the games are better even if the same setup. Like I said, the games might be offered for every console, but because of the different setup of each console you always see one that shines more in each genre.

 

[Mtn.Man]

What's this? Another article about how "shortcoming x" will be the death of the Wii? Seems like we've been reading these ever since the Wii was announced, yet the Wii remains the top selling system worldwide. I wonder when people are going to get tired of writing them?

 

[wiipsycho]

I agree with the article. Why should Nintendo reject good online play because their Japanese customers think it's 'nerdy'. Because a small fraction of people who buy the console won't use it?

Fine, then take online play out of the Japanese products and let everyone else stay in this decade and play online.

Japan pisses me off:mad5: