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1 Millionth Unique User Logs on to Nintendo Wifi
MrJack5304 writes "According to Nintendo's official Press Release, the Nintendo Wifi service has logged it's 1 millionth user. In 5 short months Nintendo has reached 1 million users, and had 27 million total connections." From the release: "Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection lets Nintendo DS owners log on cost-free to compete or interact in a variety of games, from racing in Mario Kart DS to community-building in Animal Crossing: Wild World. The 1 millionth user was a player in Japan, who logged on to play Animal Crossing: Wild World." The release goes on to mention that Tetris DS and Metroid Hunters will also utilize the service.
Which business model will win?
Sony/MS use a subscription model. Nintendo is using free access.
The free access is an extra bonus when buying a console, so Nintendo should sell extra consoles to make up the cost of free online gaming. Sony/MS would rather sell fewer consoles but use a subscription model.
One way or another its nice to have choices.
And for being the 1 millionth user he gets?!? An anonymous mention in a press release... :-(
This guy's the limit!
And my problem with Animal Crossing is that there's no "community" place where you can randomly visit someone else's town... you have to manually put someone else's code in.
;>
That would seem to be design intent. If there were such a space, then Nintendo would have to police it. Communities do exist (eg. see gamefaqs message boards). Having random vistors would be very annoying - there are lots or idiots in the world who will trash your town.
A matching service would be nice - perhaps we'll see it in a sequel.
hooked up funny
... considering as far as I know, Mario Kart and Animal Crossing are the only two games to utilize this service stateside. I may be very wrong, however. I just hadn't been keeping up on DS stuff.
This sig isn't original enough, it's time to come up with something witty...
I didn't say that they were bad games or that there was no difference between them. I'm not criticising Nintendo here, just the rabid zealots that seem to appear on Slashdot in far higher numbers than Playstation and Xbox fanboys. It's more than obvious than Slashdot has a large pro-Nintendo slant, I was just pointing that out in a light-hearted, tongue-in-cheek manner. I've got no agenda.
Infact, out of the 'next gen' consoles, the Revolution, and thus Nintendo, seems almost certain at getting my money. I like Nintendo. I know they can deliver high quality games. I just believe that they are praised without question too often on here, and that every decision made by the company that may even be slightly negative or in poor business sense is always excused - doesn't matter this, big plan that, graphics have never mattered, it will still be a great game, I actually prefer the cel-shaded style (HONESTLY I DO!), they never wanted to win the console war etc.
The next Mario could be really disappointing but a lot of people would feel compelled to love it BECAUSE IT'S MARIO, as though they have some kid of duty to protect their inner-child and not tarnish the rosy memories of the frog suit and warp whistle.
While all of the consoles have their fans, there's just some niggling feeling that tells me the N-heads trust the fungus a little too much.
Or maybe I just think about things a little too much...
Mother, do you think they'll like this sig?
I'm gonna go out on a limb, here, but I really wonder what the youth whose first console was the PSX will think about sony fifteen years after crash bandicoot, for example.
Now, Mario, that's staying power. Because yeah, he was a pretty cool guy to hang out with during the eighties.