Blow for Wii Online as Third-Parties Denied Ability at Launch

MOTHERfuckERSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Relax. Live wasn't available at the Xbox's launch, and look at how fast that grew.

not very fast at all really... it kindabombed on the original xbox and its only got 60% take up of 360 (of which how much is just novalty and how much is actual people playing?)

wii online probably wont go very far at all for another 5 years.

Thinking about it. I'd actually expect there to be no online games at all on day one.
Most of the games set for launch, first party games at least, don't look like they're gonna be online ones.
There's a few that will be multiplayer for sure but they've been making such a big deal about getting people to play together in all of the promo videos rather than playing online.

yep

maybe they dont and wont have the servers and systems ready and in place to handle onine games until 2007

its not the worse news ever, but as spong said, man, things were going so well.

kinda bombed?!?

you must be joking, or mebbe you're reasing way too much into statistics...but thats just crazy talk...

Anyway if Nintendo were half as altruistic or half as slick as its fanboys like to make out, they'd have this sorted.

Well given the hype and the shouting, Live only picked up about 2Mil Xbox accounts or 10% of all Xbox owners. And just as we are wary of "units shipped" figures, we should be wary of "accounts activated" figures. How many of those Live accounts were used for a month and then never again?

On 360, however, because Live membership wasn't an add-on and because Silver access is free, we are told that 60% of all Xbox 360s have connected to live. Again we should be wary. How many of those accounts are Gold accounts and how many connected once and then never again?

I just don't see how anyone could say that it "bombed"...10%, whatever...its still light years ahead of any potential competitors. I dunno about how successful it has been financially, and don't really care, "Bombed" implies that its been less than successful, and I just don't see how you can make that argument, without imposing unreasonable expectations that never existed before. In other words it was at least as successful as it was meant to be, mebbe not at the far upside end of the bell curve, but not at the downside end at all...

id agree with that, finance aside MS have been the utmost frontrunners in bringing the online componant to console and their efforts will eventually have played a massive part in making sure pretty much every games console offers online play, and offers it in a such a palatable way as MS.

benchmark time!

"SPOnG believes Nintendo will conduct a live test of Wii online with a select number of titles to make sure everything, you know, works."


Yep I believe so too. Same as with DS. Nothing to worry about.Things will run smoothly.
;)

I still don't really care about online games - I think what really happened was Microsoft found a niche that wasn't really an essential aspect and hyped it up, and their target market were the kind of people who play online games anyway (XBox is a PC). After that they can say XX% of all current console "gamers" play online, when in reality, it's not such a big deal.

Anyway, with Wii, this is not a repeat of the original XBox Live, because XBL introduced people to it (so they don't need to be introduced to it again), more people expect online service at this point, people are more familiar and more people are familiar with the internet, and also Nintendo are doing it differently (even if only slightly). In other words, it's a different generation.

To be quite honest, though, someone must be a right idiot to decide not to buy a game they would get otherwise, just because it doesn't have an online mode - what a disaster that would be.

well globalisation is the future. its spearheaded in the public domain by the internet, and that involves connecting the world and people together with wires.

online gaming becoming an accepted standard was going to happen sooner or later, but microsoft took the idea and ran like f**k with it.

yeah, youre right that a brilliant game shouldnt need online abilities to be considered great and to be bought, but it adds another dimension and longevity to games, and its much appreciated.

at the time that MS targetted online gaming, it probably could be considered a niche market. but thats not down to the amount of people who enjoy it (opinion, orientation) - like scat porn which is a niche area of pornography - it was because of the lack of availability (and probably lack of awareness) to joe gamer.

personally i prefer playing a person sat next to me. be it split screen fps or full screen beat em ups. but still, online is a brilliant thing to have and should become standard as far as multiplayer is concerned. and multiplayer is pretty much a standard.

even mgs has a mulitplayer now, its a huge aspect

So actually what MS really did is identify a market destined for rapid future growth and positioned themselves to take advantage of it. Pretty clever, Sony could have done the same thing years ago if they'd bothered. The wacky implications of MS hype being responsible for people wanting to play online games don't bear discussion, unless its you discussing your paranoid conspiracy theories with a liscenced therapist. This is where it gets good...



So first its the next generation where online service is de rigeur, then the very people whos expectations of online play have risen are idiots for making inclusion of such a deciding factor in game purchases?

Actually, I think someone would have to be a right idiot to make that statement. Seriously man, the words replay value mean anything to you? Aside from a very few titles anything sans online play is pretty much a rental, in my eyes. And racing games cry out for some kind of online play almost as much as FPS. If I'm gonna fork over the kind of cash they get for games, I expect the ability to play my friends, so I can beat them so bad they throw the controller down in disgust. If a racing game of all things can't deliver that, its sub-optimal at best.

oh you can sit next to me, but you bet your own damn tv, and I better not catch you screenlooking...

me, you, one tv, split screen, goldeneye, license to kill, pistols, complex.


w00ga!

:D