Nintendo: Online play in 3-4 years

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/content_page.php?aid=5666

Comments attributed to Nintendo' s Shigeru Miyamoto in this week' s Famitsu magazine indicate that the company is planning to bring its systems online within a three to four year timescale, with DS leading the way.

Miyamoto, credited as the design genius behind key Nintendo franchises including Zelda and Mario, told the magazine that online gaming will reach the mainstream within three to four years, and that Nintendo will be moving in that direction as a result.

Sony, MS, and various PC devs are ripping the benefits on online gaming now. Even Square' s FFO has been a money tree.

But I guess I shouldn' t be surprised by Nintendo' s arrogance.

However, what ticks me off is instead of Nintendo helping to usher in " mainstream online play" (note the sarcasm) they' re sitting back waiting for other companies to do it for them.

Don' t they realize if they start their online plans in 3 years it may already be too late??? Devs with massive online plans aren' t going to wait for Nintendo to play catch up. And budget tight gamers who' ve already set themselves up with Sony/MS may look at Nintendo and just say there isn' t any more room.

Perhaps Nintendo is becoming too stubborn for their own good?!?

If Nintendo makes an online Pokemon RPG type game then I' m probably going to be online with them. I' ve always found the thought of an online Pokemon with a real world to be quite interesting. Other than that...I' d have to wait until it came out. I do agree though that they are waiting WAY too long to get into the online business.

In response to the following complaint I have decided to change my signature:

" by the way, yoshimitsu you might want to click the little checkbox that makes your signature disappear." -Jonah Shoemaker, Residential Dumbass

They needed it for whatever their next-gen system is going to be. I don' t play online, and probably never will, but you' d have to be completely naive as a business executive not to understand its potential. Online is indeed an expensive proposition for consoles, and they' re not really seeing insane profits from it just yet, but it will most likely continue to grow. At the very least, you need to keep up with your competition, and to not have one major deciding purchasing factor for your product...well, that ain' t the best idea.

Kikizo Staff Writer

cool but nintendo needs to get online games fast because people are not going to buy the systems and thanks for the letting us know because i didnt know that

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i think Nintendo will make a mistake if they go online. While everone else is making MMRPG or whatever they make, Nintendo will be making games for ppl who could not care any less about online gaming. i like Mario Bros. and Zelda. why? Beacuse i know i can have fun without someone tuanting me if i suck. do not get me wrong, muiti-player games are good. But i would like to play a game and BEAT it with a team of other guys going thru it with me. maybe i am old-fashioned but i like a game that i can play by myself. the Theme here is that all games will go online and the day of solo play will be gone. Nintendo should stick to its guns and refuse online play.

On one hand, Nintendo is playing it smart...they let all the others develope their online systems - costing those companies millions - only to make their online gaming network with all the best components of the others for pennies on the dollar (the research would have already been done by those other companies)!

However, on the other hand, Nintendo should have seen that online gaming is the direction in which console makers and game developers are headed. There is enough technology already developed for Nintendo to begin their online network with minimal effort. In this case, Nintendo is failing their fanbase...and ultimately, themselves!

Network play for the DS was one of the big selling points, so I can' t imagine Nintendo taking 3-4 years to bring that about for the DS. Next year sounds more appropriate...

Videogaming is the contemporary interactive pasttime.

i agree with you DaRoosh with you in the first part. but the second part is where we are split. i do not think they are failing there fans because i am with Nintendo for the fact that they DO NOT go online. a corp. should stay back and make games for ppl who do not have to go online to have a good time. i am pretty sure there are ppl against me on whole Big N thing. but i like to play games that are good for what they are. not if they are internet compatable.

I' m an avid online gamer so I have the exact opposite of your views. There is a level of competition that you can only find online. No matter how good the AI is, it is not up to par with an actual human. Sure, you have your a-holes in online games but there are people who are pretty decent. Then of course you have your MMORPG gamers, who IMO are the nicest folks around. I' ve only played those types of games long enough to know that I would be addicted if I did not stop. Now I play mainly on Xbox Live, and sometimes on my PC. I just can' t get enough for those FPS' s.

Actually, if I was Nintendo I would closely monitor the games each big console was having made for them for online purposes. Then if there was a genre that was left out I would make a game for that genre. For example, there is a huge lack of MMORPG' s for consoles. If Nintendo was somehow able to snatch a big name from somewhere and get one of those puppies online...better yet make it an exclusive...that would be a system seller. Nothing like PSO (the sorriest excuse for an RPG I' ve ever played), but something more along the lines of World of Warcraft.

In response to the following complaint I have decided to change my signature:

" by the way, yoshimitsu you might want to click the little checkbox that makes your signature disappear." -Jonah Shoemaker, Residential Dumbass

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