The Wicked Garden - Pay and Play: A step up for Nintendo WFC, or a crash and burn?
GDC 08 was a nice place for some little announcements for Nintendo. Around GDC, Nintendo announced official release dates for Wii Fit and WiiWare. They also announced another interesting feature…
Nintendo Pay and Play is a new feature that will likely go on a game by game basis. Games that feature the blue Nintendo WiFi Connection logo will support free online play. Games with the Red WiFi logo will support Pay and Play. Of course, this was all announced a couple of months ago, and everyone likely knows about it. But lets take a look at the the good features that could come from Pay and Play, as well as the possible bad features.
When many gamers read about the announcements for Pay and Play, many were instantly frustrated on how Nintendo said they would support a free online service, but is now going to make them pay. I instantly thought of the good things that can come from Pay and Play. First off, no more friend codes! Nintendo said that Pay and Play games will have more features then regular WiFi games. Could we be saying good bye to friend codes for a while? It is possible. Of course, it would mean that maybe we would get a specific name of some sort for each game, and wouldn’t have the same friends list for all games, but it would be a step up from friend codes. Second off, more communication! Now, I don’t care if it is even text chat. Reggie Fils-Amie practically confirmed voice chat. And some people are saying we should get it around the third quarter of this year. Once again, I could settle in for text chat, and no, not like Mario Kart’s pre-made texts like “Good game!”. I was happy enough when I saw you could have little custom text taunts in Brawl. And lastly, it could mean downloadable content for games that would be better off with it. Downloadable characters for Mario Tennis Wii? It’s possible.
But of course, there are some bad sides to it. One of the worst things would be that Pay and Play only means downloadable content. Which of course, isn’t really the worst thing. But from the looks of Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: My Life as King, it could be pretty bad. Downloadable content wouldn’t be very bad, it just depends on the content that we get to download. Another thing is the price. Now, I’m predicting it will be a one time fee, and you will be charged Wii Points. But, there is a chance that we may end up looking at either a monthly, or yearly subscription. Seeing as how it looks to be a game by game basis for Pay and Play, monthly or yearly subscriptions would be a horrible idea, and just down right suck. But once again, the worst thing that could happen is if Pay and Play means downloadable content only, and nothing more. Yeah, DLC is cool, but come on, I think communication and dropping friend codes is way more important.
What do you think could come from Pay and Play? Post your thoughts in the comments, or take the discussion to the Wii Live Forums. Thanks for reading!
April 8th, 2008 at 11:12 am
Yay, another Wicked Garden! Great read as always. I too hope for the demise of FCs, and voice chat to be in some games. Nintendo could do so much more with Pay and Play, let’s hope they don’t screw it up with not giving us good content and/or making us pay too much.
April 8th, 2008 at 10:36 pm
I think this could be a good thing. Especially if they incorporate voice/text chat. Odds are your little 12 year old potty mouth wont be spending his hard earned lunch money to drop the F bomb as often as possible during a game of any sort. I think this could be a good move by Nintendo.
April 10th, 2008 at 4:41 am
You know what, I don’t like that they are taking back there word on having a free online experience. We have to pay more for everything now a days. People may think Wow what a Cheap Ass. Well think about this!!! Nintendo has been making a $50 profit from each one of these consoles sold. Not to mention how the DS is selling and all but lets calculate just the Wii lets see…
Wii - 20 Million x $50 = 1 Billion Dollars Profit.
Now I know the money goes into many other aspects of the company weather it is the DS or the Accessories or R&D but the point is the Wii is still sold out and they are raking in the Profits. I know that they could provide free online gaming to the masses. Now I agree Additional Game Content could be charged for as long as the Content isn’t already on the disc but, Charging to play online Multiplayer is a crime. I grew up with free multiplayer abit online but I mean come on. I won’t ever pay to play online. I am not going to pay to play and be part of the community who gets ripped off. In the end the online features that came with the Wii weren’t thought all the way through and now WE LITTERALLY HAVE TO PAY THE PRICE FOR THERE LACK OF THINKING. So should we pay for a system without FC No I don’t think so. They should just fix it. I also think Nintendo created the Friends Codes in thinking we would just add all our friends in which we knew in person and never even considered the online implications.
In the end though
Now Imagine if you had to pay for every firmware that came to the PS3,360,Wii. Don’t let it come to this because Corporate Greed has no Limits!!!