Nintendo Online Play Really That Bad?
Ever since Brawl come out Nintendo has got a lot of grief over their online play. Today alone their have been two articles talking about the negative on Nintendo online play. One even suggest for Nintendo to give it up. Do you really think it is that bad? What should Nintendo do about it? What can they do about it? Should they really forget about it this generation, and try again next?
Not Just Lag: How Nintendo Fumbled Online Play
April 4, 2008
Lets see, online play is nothing compared to Xbox Live, or PS3 online, you can’t chat online, there are absolutely no rankings for any game, I can’t play with my brother online with complete strangers cause I need friend codes, but that only a specific number of the SAME people, Metroid Prime 3, a great game to go online never did…..ya, its a floop. Would I say to give it up though, not at all, only try to freaking make it better next time around, for now, even if its a floop, and only mildly entertaining, I’m still sticking with the Wii. Think about it for one sec, Wii doesn’t have that good of online play, but the PS3 isn’t all, omg online either. Xbox Live is the counsel known for online play, but the other 4 counsels (ps3, wii, psp, ds) let you go online for free. If anything, its just DIFFERENT, compared to the other counsels, not like such a huge disaster that these sites make it.
April 4, 2008
I am just throwing this out here to play devils advocate. If the pay a play applications turns out to be what we fear, paying to play online, would you except it with the way the internet is now? For me if I pay to go online with a game and it keeps crashing I will not be that happy.
April 4, 2008
I completely agree with jahiggin, the online isn’t even acceptable for free and if you have to pay to play super lag bros i will lose all hope for nintendos online.
April 5, 2008
ya, but to some, that MIGHT be just a bit bearable and acceptable, if!….Nintendo changes the way they do the whole online thing in the first place.
April 5, 2008
Hmmm… yah I agree with those articles. Nintendo shouldn’t have gone into the world of online gaming just because Microsoft and Sony are doing it.
I don’t think that they should drop it completely, but if they are more open to suggestions from the consumer about what needs to be done about the online aspect and actually fix it then I’m sure it will get much better.
Pay-to-Play:
As for free online gaming right now; that’s the reason why we are having so many problems. Honestly, why do you think Xbox Live is doing so good? It’s because people are paying to play! Microsoft then takes that money to ensure that they have enough servers and such to keep the community happy. Even the PS3 has a better online service because Sony has much more money compared to Nintendo even thought the Wii is doing much better than the PS3. So if Nintendo decides to charge to play online, I would pay because I trust that they won’t mess it up.
Friend codes:
Friend codes do sound like a good idea “in theory” especially for the younger players, but when the more mature audience wants to play online they don’t want to deal with a 16-digit code just so they can play online. It should be up to the parents to moderate how their child plays online. If they want their kid to use Nintendo’s current policy of online play or a unrestricted form more like Xbox Live then they should be able to choose from between the two. There are ways around the friend codes, EA proved that with Medal of Honor. Instead of putting in a friend code they had you create an EA account and that gave you a screen name for you to play online.
Hard Drive:
I understand that the Wii doesn’t have one so that it will keep the price cheap. But to completely leave it out is quite stupid if you ask me. They should have allowed you to plug in your own external drive or used the SD slot to be used for memory expansion. In my opinion this is what the root of all the problems that they are having. If they had more space then they wouldn’t have to worry about WiiWare or downloadable content.
The final thing that I will touch on is the lack of communication for online gaming. When will we see a microphone? I once saw an article about the wiimote and it found that there is actually a microphone in it also. As to why Nintendo hasn’t yet used this beyond me. If I really want to talk to the other player in Brawl I’ll just IM them; and it works pretty good. Much better than just having 4 small taunt phrases. But they really should get to working on something for this problem.
So hopefully Nintendo will learn from all of their mistakes and the next console will address all of these issues.