Nintendo Doesn't Believe In Online Gaming

from the hmm dept

While Microsoft and Sony seem to be betting big dollars on the rise of online gaming from their console systems, Nintendo seems to think they're throwing money away. Nintendo president Satoru Iwata was quoted as saying, "customers do not want online games." While I've been a bit skeptical about the space in the past, the growing success of things like Xbox Live suggests that I (and Satoru Iwata) may have written off the space way too quickly. In my defense, my thoughts on the matter came before broadband was so common and before there was any evidence either way. I still don't think all games will go online, but there very clearly is a large and growing market for console-based online games -- and to completely deny that with all of the existing evidence suggests Nintendo has their head in the sand. Update: CNN has a good (related) story wondering why ISPs aren't making a bigger deal about online gaming, and signing up with the various companies for partnerships.
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  • identicon
    dorpus, 7 Jul 2004 @ 10:39am

    Government-sponsored online games

    The Chinese government has built an online game, released on the anniversary of the July 7th Marco Polo Bridge incident, in which Chinese patriots fight the bad Japanese.

    http://headlines.yahoo.co.jp/hl?a=20040707-00000045-scn-int

    The US army has also built online games to promote recruitment, if I'm not mistaken.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Permanent4, 7 Jul 2004 @ 11:10am

    Something to consider...

    Perhaps Nintendo prefers to bring everyone together in the same big living room, rather than have individual gamers isolated in remote locations. One of the biggest series in the history of Nintendo consoles was Super Bomberman, which was arguably the best party game in 16-bit console history. It's often more fun to talk trash to your friends when they're in the room with you.
    The blanket statement is a bad way to promote that idea, though, because online gaming is happening and isn't going away. Still, we live in an era where people buy more than one console, so it doesn't seem too far-fetched to have one console for online play and another for some good party games, no?

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 7 Jul 2004 @ 11:22am

    No Subject Given

    I am a customer who doesn't want Nintendo jumping on the internet bandwagon. I won't go so far as to say that no one wants it, because clearly some people do. However I think there are a lot of people like me who would rather play single player or with friends than a bunch of random fucktards on a public server.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Mark, 7 Jul 2004 @ 3:58pm

    No online Nintendo

    Where Nintendo is really missing the boat--and where their stubborn rejection of online gaming will hurt their bottom line in the US market--is sports gaming. Online play is what gets sports gamers really excited; as good as Madden was offline, it was immeasurably better when it got online leagues, tournaments, and so on. Nintendo has sports titles, but the lack of an online component makes them about as appealing as black and white televisions in the age of color. It's a remarkably short-sighted position, and I'm continually surprised every time I hear some company rep reiterate their stance.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      Permanent4, 8 Jul 2004 @ 1:54pm

      Re: No online Nintendo

      Where Nintendo is really missing the boat--and where their stubborn rejection of online gaming will hurt their bottom line in the US market--is sports gaming.

      ESPN did a whole week's worth of features on sports video games not too long ago. They mentioned that a lot of NASCAR drivers actually play online racing games to prepare for specific tracks and practice different team racing strategies.

      So if you're racing online and the guy in the Dale Jr. car manages to whip around you from the outside, it might actually be Dale Jr. I guess you can't get that with Nintendo, huh?

      link to this | view in chronology ]


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