Wii: Pay to Play "WTF!!!!!!!!!!!!"

[Xavier]

This thread title and first post were so misleading.

Frankly, Nintendo needs to drop the crap and just adopt the Xbox Live model. For all of their talk about making things simple and not wanting to confuse the gamer, the "friend code" is the most convoluted system I've ever seen for online play.

Now, if Nintendo is going to start actually releasing downloadable content for its games, I'm fine with being charged for it, Microsoft and Sony do the same thing already. If Nintendo is going to offer me a Wii-Plus membership package, where online-play is enabled in Virtual Console games, where stats are universally tracked, where a single friend code allows me to do everything and my friends to find me, then I'm fine with being charged for it, Microsoft already does the same thing.

If Nintendo is going to start charging me for an online experience that might as well be offline, that is, no friend list, no voice chat, no text chat, just another lifeless character standing next to me that might as well be a computer, then yeah, I'm upset.

Seriously. Its great that Brawl is online, except how do I even know its really online if the random match-ups involve absolutely no communication between opponents? If a Brawl match goes online and theres nobody there to talk about it, did the match ever go online in the first place?

[Khamsin]

They don't want a community full of assholes that makes one of their goals impossible; that goal being them making gaming a more popular medium like movies, books, and TV. It is extremely hard to make a gaming community that's not full of assholes.

Believe it or not, the movie, book and TV communities are full of assholes, too. They just don't communicate with each other, for the most part.

Something tells me someone is trying to make an MMO for the system...

Which would suck, because you'd have the MMO fees plus the pay-to-play fees to Nintendo.

If a Brawl match goes online and theres nobody there to talk about it, did the match ever go online in the first place?

Yes, you just never know it.

[Zarath]

Since it's not implemented yet, nor any actual information is actually released, I'm not gonna go "WHAAAAAA" quite yet. There are certain services that, within reason, should inflict a modest cost however, this is in Nintendo's hand if they're gonna do good or not. Currently my stance on Nintendo is "quite pleased" and really they're doing a lot of things right just some thing that should have been done to begin with (like a good online setup) is really something I like to see implemented.

They don't necessarily need a leader board (meh, never did care much about them to begin with) but something like downloadable content would be a major plus. They don't necessarily have to be an exact copy of X-Box live however a centralized service would be appreciated. Friendlists, chat progs, and the whole works would be a much welcome addition to my Wii

Xavier put it nicely

Now, if Nintendo is going to start actually releasing downloadable content for its games, I'm fine with being charged for it, Microsoft and Sony do the same thing already. If Nintendo is going to offer me a Wii-Plus membership package, where online-play is enabled in Virtual Console games, where stats are universally tracked, where a single friend code allows me to do everything and my friends to find me, then I'm fine with being charged for it, Microsoft already does the same thing.

Such soon to be things that come to mind is like FF:CC which from what I can tell will be the first downloadable game on the Wii which could be what he could be referring to for all I care.

What does pay to play mean really? One time costs? Monthly fee?

As stated previously, this is all vague, and at best not viable information to worry too much quite yet.

[Kaelan]

Hopefully this will turn out to be a good thing. If they mess this up they'll piss off alot of people. Xbox has set the standard, why can't they just emulate it first, then add Nintendo only features later? They must have learned something from their mistakes.

They don't want a community full of assholes that makes one of their goals impossible; that goal being them making gaming a more popular medium like movies, books, and TV. It is extremely hard to make a gaming community that's not full of assholes.

Because the type of community in Xbox Live has everything to do with how the Live network was setup and nothing to do with the types of mainstream games usually played Xbox? :/

[Not Kuno]

I don't play the xbox but I was suprized when I tried it out at my friends house not along ago. It's online play has a completely different feel to it. Now, I love Nintendo but they completely suck ass at anything internet related. I guess it goes back to the Japanese culture and crap where they love being anonymous and not having to hear crazy gaijins yell at each other during games.

[Lockecole7]

Despite this seemingly being a bad idea, ( I don't own a Wii), I laugh at people who complain about paying for online play. Less than $5 ($60 for 13 months) a month is more than worth the quality of online play/content that XBOX Live Gold dishes out. Hell the access to demos/games/movies would be worth the $5 alone, let alone the ability to play every 360 game online.

[Maxxthepenguin]

Hopefully this will turn out to be a good thing. If they mess this up they'll piss off alot of people. Xbox has set the standard, why can't they just emulate it first, then add Nintendo only features later? They must have learned something from their mistakes.

They don't want a community full of assholes that makes one of their goals impossible; that goal being them making gaming a more popular medium like movies, books, and TV. It is extremely hard to make a gaming community that's not full of assholes.

Because the type of community in Xbox Live has everything to do with how the Live network was setup and nothing to do with the types of mainstream games usually played Xbox? :/

It's both. People get ramped up over all sorts of shit, including the other fucker getting a star in mario party due to some random shit that nobody has control over. You give people the access and they'll do what the access allows.

[Dmitry]

People are over reacting right now since it's all speculation besides the announcement. There are so many things that could require the membership or however they do it for, or it could also be additional stuff like Microsoft's DLC. Also, why would they charge for Brawl if it's already out and isn't charging anyone?

[-Zer0-]

Hmm, semi-on topic but in any regard, if these fees are for an overall online accessibility, I'm hoping it's charged per month rather than a lump sum for different durations. I'd gladly pay $5 for each month rather than pay $50 all at once and not use online features for the several months I don't go online. More often than not I find my XBL account sitting there collecting dust as I play a single player game with little to no online features with no benefits or some such.