Nintendo Plans Pay & Play; Will Charge For Online Play, Channel Access
During a GDC presentation today, Takashi Aoyama announced that a new “Pay & Play” service will make it’s way to Nintendo’s much-maligned online service.
While details apparently weren’t specified during the conference, Takashi stated that,
“collecting fees for some services [that] will allow us to adapt flexibly.”
Games that will require payment to play will be tagged with a red “Nintendo Wi-Fi” Icon on them with the words, “Pay & Play”. I find this pretty humorous, especially considering how anemic their online plan has been thus far. Maybe this has come to pass simply because Nintendo isn’t making enough money right now? Oh wait, their profits doubled in the first three quarters of the year so that can’t be it. Maybe they’re just money-sucking bastards without a clue of what their community really wants?
Pardon me, I’m going to go write, “PISS OFF” into the dust atop my Wii.
How about adapting now, at least just a little, then charge me for the advanced features once I see that you can actually accomplish anything significant online? Hopefully that’s where this “Pay & Play” eventually leads.
For the record, that red icon is not from Nintendo.
Via EvilAvatar.com
Tags: Nintendo, Online, wii
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This sounds to me like something they were talking about before they even launched. They said that they weren’t planning to charge for online play, but if someone made software they wanted to charge for, Nintendo would let them.
I take this to mean something like an MMORPG might be on its way.