30th October 2003, 11:38 AM
Quote:Nintendo, though, generally measures their success in profit, not in how popular something is. No doubt online Nintendo games would be insanely popular, they would probably even get me to pay $50 a year and I never play games online, but Nintendo won't push ahead until they see a way for it to make money.
That's one of Nintendo's biggest strengths and weaknesses, Derek. They do make a lot of money but they probably could have been doing much better these past eight years had they taken certain chances. Nintendo didn't want to do the DVD thing because they didn't think it would pay off for Sony and MS, yet it did. They don't want to do the online thing until they see just how successful it's going to be for MS and Sony in their second year. This wait-and-see attitude is killing them right now. It's especially hurting thid party sales for them, which are bad enough as it is. Who in their right mind would want to get SSX 3 for the GC if they have a PS2 (the PS2 version has online play)? Same thing goes for XIII, NFS Underground, THUG, all of Sega's and EA's sports games, Medal of Honor Rising Sun, etc. The list goes on and on. I can kind see why Nintendo is reluctant to put their games online (because setting up a LAN is so much easier than playing someone online
), but they should have made it easier for third parties to include online modes with their games like Sony and MS have. Give them more incentive to do so.