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Nintendo Dismisses Online For GC Successor
Thanks to an anonymous reader for pointing to a GamePro article discussing Nintendo's public attitude to online gaming, even as it extends to the GameCube successor. According to Nintendo's senior VP George Harrison, "[Online gaming] is a consideration. We're looking into it for the next iteration of the GameCube. We just don't believe consumers are ready for it. Right now, no one's paying for subscriptions. The real test comes when you have to start coughing up $15 per month." However, analyst Michael Goodman doesn't concur: "The game console isn't just a game console anymore. It's evolving into a home entertainment system. Nintendo has refused to acknowledge that and it's hurt them."
Personally I don't play my consoles online since I have my PC for that, but this sounds an awful lot like the time Nintendo brushed aside this new-fangled CD technology in place of good-ol cartridges for the N64...
Boy did that work out well. Didn't they learn anything?
to just concentrate on the pure gaming consoles; I personally think they'd need some better games to do that though. Thank god for Zelda.
Gaming companies are going to create games for the systems with the higest sales numbers; it's the best way to make sure that if you make a good game, it'll sell well.
well, there's only one online game FOR The gamecube right now. I payed the $10 monthly fee for PSO for about 4 months, but got tired of it. the problem is, nintendo seems to expect third parties (like sega) to fill that void where there is no online multiplayer, and right now, the only really viable market for online console gaming is Live. nobody wants to have to set up their own network: "let microsoft do it for us!" except for sega, who has always boldly gone where no game company has gone before... often to their detriment, since they go there before the rest of the industry is ready to follow.
How many times can they miss the boat and still survive?
The Super Nintendo was a good product. The GBA was seriously flawed, as evidenced by the success of the GBA-SP, which is also a good product. (BTW, missing headphone port seriously overrated; I got the adapter and still almost never use it when traveling, which given the ease of folding the SP up and slapping it in my pocket is quite frequently. But this could too easily turn into an SP-love-fest...) The N64 was also seriously flawed because Nintendo missed the optical disk trend, and was seriously hobbled by using cartridges as a result.
The Gamecube is, as far as I know, a good product (don't own one, but haven't heard systematic complaints about it), so maybe they're due for a Major Boat Missing again. Will they be able to survive?
Granted, this isn't quite as bad as the N64 going with carts, despite the fact it had been obvious for multiple years that they could not hold enough data, especially for 3D, where a single good texture would be the size of a 1980 megahit videogame. Online gaming in the console arena is too new to be called a run-away success. On the other hand, the trend in the PC world is crystal clear; while not everything has to be playable online, anything that can be, should be, and it will contribute to its success in ways that a non-online experience couldn't have. (Would Diablo have been as much of a success without online support?) If nothing else, online play relieves the game house of the still-nearly-impossible task of writing an AI!
I'd feel pretty safe in predicting that if they don't include online capabilities in the base-unit, or as a really cheaply-priced upgrade, that it will be seen as a mistake on par with sticking a 3D system like the N64 with just cartridges for data storage. People like playing with people and that is not going to change.
In fact, phrase it that way and one almost wonders at the hubris of thinking you can discard the single best AI intelligence there is on your console and still compete against the console systems who will tap that AI to the fullest!
The much better article on gamesindustry.biz doesn't leave out some important details that like this article. Mainly:
"Microsoft and Sony have now rolled out online services in all three major global territories for their consoles, but the numbers of subscribers remain relatively low - with estimates for the combined numbers of console online gamers ranging from one to two million players, only a tiny fraction of the 60-million odd installed base of the two consoles." (emphasis mine)
Yes, Sony and (especially) Microsoft may be establishing themselves as an 'online' brand. But they are not getting a very big finnancial benefit out of it, and will it be a big boost in the long run? If brand was all that mattered, shouldn't Atari be ruling the market right now?