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Metroid DS Title Not So Much Online

Posted by Zonk on from the what's-the-point,-then? dept.

The much anticipated Metroid Prime: Hunters for the Nintendo DS has been revealed to be slated to release without multiplayer. 1up.com has the story: "Really, we could have made this game online. But Nintendo's vision of online play is different from that of other companies...We wanted it to be free, easy, and easy to access for everybody. To set up the kind of infrastructure that we needed, and to meet the launch date we have for this game, the two just didn't match."

14 of 83 comments (clear)

  1. It DOES come with multiplayer by NekoXP · · Score: 5, Informative


    Don't people read..

    The references state that it simply won't be INTERNET play. You can still
    jump in with 4 DS (and only one cart..) and play with 3 of your friends,
    deathmatching in the same room or office.

    Just not with your friends thousands of miles away in Japan or South Africa, eh?

    Someone tell me why that is a big loss?

    Neko

    1. Re:It DOES come with multiplayer by FriedTurkey · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I don't have 3 friends.

    2. Re:It DOES come with multiplayer by bleaknik · · Score: 2, Funny

      Its ok. We're nerds. None of us have three friends.

      --
      Deja Vu
      n. 1. The sensation that you've read this very article before.
    3. Re:It DOES come with multiplayer by incom · · Score: 2, Insightful

      The big loss is that, especially for us adult DS owners, we aren't going to be playing local wireless DS with 4 friends very often. If this game were online it would have provided me with much fun, now I have to judge it solely on single player, which might make the game not worthy of a purchase depending.

      --
      True genius is grasping a situation like a peice of fruit, and peircing it just right so that it drains dry.
  2. It's about quality by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Something that drives me crazy is that most video game writers have no clue how much it takes to produce a videogame; they assume that there is virtually no effort and no cost associated with adding features to a game (and they're wrong).

    Metroid's development probably started any where between 18 and 30 months ago; in the early design stages they were probably pretty uncertain what type of online plan there would be and they probably never intended to have any features that took advantage of it. Now Nintendo probably came to a final decision about the Nintendo DS' online infastructure 9-12 months ago; well after the feature set of Metroid Prime Hunters' had been decided upon. Now (hypothetically) Nintendo could have spent more money, diverted development resources from other features in the game, and delayed the game to tack on some second rate online multiplayer.

    A delay of the game would be costly because Nintendo thinks that this game is needed to attract the 'core-gamer' audience to the Nintendo DS; and reallocating resources would have been costly because it would have lowered the quality of the game and thus sold less games (and potentially less Nintendo DS').

    Ultimatley it is a trade-off; You can create a game that is of higher quality to the 90% of potential users who are not interested in Online Multiplayer or you can create a game that is better for the 10% that is. It sounds one sided but it was probably a tough decision because the 10% that are interested in Online Multiplayer have more influence over the general gaming public.

    1. Re:It's about quality by AvantLegion · · Score: 2, Insightful
      >> but it was probably a tough decision because the 10% that are interested in Online Multiplayer have more influence over the general gaming public.

      Because they're the people that buy far more games per person than the people in the 90%. Game companies make livings off selling games to that 10%.

    2. Re:It's about quality by buffer-overflowed · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I give it a month if not less before someone tunnels it(as they did for Halo, Mario Kart, and other "lan" play enabled games).

      --
      The key to the enjoyment of pop music is to replace any instance of "love" with "C.H.U.D."
    3. Re:It's about quality by buffer-overflowed · · Score: 2, Informative

      What you're thinking of is possible, the DS will network boot code over a wireless connection(this is one of the ways to boot into DS mode from a GBA flash cart, called the WiFiME exploit). It is an 802.11 device(I can see it's traffic with kismet and pull data out via ethereal). The local wireless LAN play is 802.11, just w/o an IP stack(basically).

      So yea, you could, in theory single cart play Metroid Prime Hunters with 3 people located anywhere who don't have the game, just a DS. Just got to route those packets.

      --
      The key to the enjoyment of pop music is to replace any instance of "love" with "C.H.U.D."
  3. The reason? by rohlfinator · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I'm assuming lag. A first person shooter almost always requires very quick response times, something that average broadband connection still doesn't allow across long distances. Notice that most online DS games will be quite casual, slow-paced games: Animal Crossing, Ultimate Card/Brain Games, Final Fantasy, Bomberman. The one exception is Mario Kart, but a bit of lag in a friendly kart-racing game won't be a huge deal.

    Nintendo is trying to make an online plan that caters to gamers who don't usually play online. The fewer sources of frustration, the better. I can't even count how many times I've seen Halo 2 lag, or how often CS has lagged on my home DSL. It gets frustrating, and the average gamer (you know, one of those 80+% that doesn't play online) won't tolerate it for very long.

  4. Gaming media sickens me by BinaryOpty · · Score: 3, Interesting

    The article's angry that Nintendo won't shoehorn in a wireless mode into Metroid Prime:Hunters. Mario Kart and Animal Crossing are doing it too, he says. Nintendo sucks and blah blah because this one game won't have online play!

    Oh, but wait, both of those "look they're online so why can't you be" games are based off of existing franchises and so the development time is much, much shorter than developing a completely new engine/game on a (then) brand new system? The turnaround time for putting a good online multiplayer that interfaces with Nintendo's sytem is too longfor Nintendo's tastes? Especially when when the details of their wireless system wasn't settled upon until halfway through said game's development cycle? I guess these aren't viable reasons to the gaming media. Who can say "bias?" I know I can!

  5. MP: Hunters was never supposed to be online by LKM · · Score: 4, Insightful

    If you read the article, you might get the impression that Nintendo somehow changed its plan for Hunters. This is not the case. Hunters was never planned as an online game.

    Considering that it's almost a launch title (a Demo version was included with many DS consoles), it's fair to assume that Nintendo had this game planned for quite some time now. Most likely way before they finished the specs of their online service. That makes it very obvious that 1up's article shows a severe lack of understanding of how software development works, as this quote shows:

    You're telling me Nintendo didn't have any plans for this freakin' feature when they started development on Metroid Prime: Hunters? Looks like Nintendo still hasn't learned anything from their past.

    In fact, it's hardly a news piece as much as it is a rant. It almost looks as if the author was searching for something to complain about, and when finding nothing, decided to just make something up. He calls online play in Hunters a "hot button issue" when, in fact, neither Nintendo nor anyone else has ever hinted at Hunters having an online mode:

    Is it any surprise Nintendo's avoiding the hot button issue of online multiplayer with Metroid Prime: Hunters? The company absolutely loves highlighting the work they're supposedly putting into an online infrastructure for Nintendo DS, but they're showing time and time again that they completely miss the point.

    He then castigates Nintendo for not "fixing" the very prolem he had just made up a few minutes before:

    If you put your ear close to the screen, you can actually hear the damage control sirens buzzing inside the text. Nintendo knows they've botched online for Metroid Prime: Hunters, and seems content without doing anything about it.

    I don't usually question Slashdot's posting policy, since even stupid articles often lead to interesting discussions, but considering that Hunters was never supposed to be an online game, and considering the overal lack of quality of the article, I really think this one doesn't deserve to be even on Slashdot.

    1. Re:MP: Hunters was never supposed to be online by LKM · · Score: 2, Insightful
      Their lack of online support for the Gamecube - managing only a Dreamcast port and its sequel - was a crying shame.

      I agree. The people who bought an online adapter were screwed over. Nintendo should never have released the adapter. There's only one online game, and the LAN games aren't worth the huge price of the adapter.

      But the case of the DS is different. The DS will go online. It's just that the online titles aren't yet ready. Mario Kart DS will be an online title, and Animal Crossing DS will be, too. Hunters won't, and it was never meant to be.

      I agree that it would be an awesome game to play online, and I'm sure its sequel will be online, but criticising it for not being something it was never meant to be is dubious, and then doing it in such a mean-spirited article, while implying that Nintendo somehow planned Hunters to be online, but was too stupid to do it, is wrong.

      As an aside, I'm not sure that the lack of online gaming was a problem for the Cube. I think most people who want to play online games are hard-core gamers who own most or all of the consoles, anyway. Gamecube online gaming probably wasn't a big issue for a large part of Nintendo's target audience. It was wrong to release the adapters and then not support them, but overall, I don't think the lack of online gaming hurt the Cube in a big way.

      I know I didn't care too much. I would much rather play multiplayer games with my friends in my living room than over the Internet.

  6. Interview with MP: Hunters Creator from May 18 by LKM · · Score: 2, Informative

    This is really old news. I just found this Interview in IGN from May 18 in which Kensuke Tanabe, Product Manager at Nintendo NCL, explains why Hunters won't have Internet multiplayer:

    IGN: With multiplayer being Metroid Prime Hunter's focus, and Nintendo's stance on going online with its Nintendo DS software, what can you tell us about the possibility of this game going online?

    Kensuke Tanabe: Unfortunately, the game won't support the multiplayer internet function of the Nintendo DS. To do it, it's not that easy and we'd have to build the infrastructure for it to work properly. The timing of the game release and the building of the infrastructure just didn't match. So while it won't be online, multiplayer will still be very very fun.
  7. Re:Anyone know why no Console to PC online games? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    Umm... Final Fantasy XI