Good article from Nintendojo

[A Black Falcon]

Hey-- before we continue this, be aware that this is precisely the kind of thing that I said we should stop because it scares people away. Let's keep the quotes to the minimum and finish this off, alright?

Not easy. :)

It has the potential to be useful, but right now it's only making things more expensive and complex than they should be.

How so? There are a bunch of E-Reader card sets out there now... NES games, Game and Watch games, and add-ons for the latest Pokemon game, Mario Bros. 3, Animal Crossing, and some others... seems like a decent, and growing, selection to me.

OBVIOUSLY I'd far rather that these were free online add-ons. But since that isn't an option... this seems like an expensive, but somewhat worthy, try at adding content.

I'm talking about an E-Reader and Mario 3 cards.

Well its not like the E-Reader only has Mario 3 cards... they hope you got one a while back and have been buying cardsets along the way. They're at the fourth release of cardsets now...

http://www.gamespy.com/articles/november03/ereader4/

...

Holy crap, that's actually a good idea! Nintendo could just include levels and powerups in their first-party GC discs, or better yet, demo discs!

Huh, yeah, that would be a good idea... wonder if Nintendo's thought of it. :)

On the contrary, it's because of my extremely high level of admiration and devotion to Nintendo's software that I am able to look at them this way. It's like a parent who loves their child but wants them to be as successful and intelligent and they possibly can be.

It often doesn't look that way, but whatever...

No you don't, and what you just said is exactly what I said! This thread is about looking at what Nintendo is doing wrong about online gaming and connectivity, so that is what I am discussing. They get plenty of praise in other threads. You've lost sight of this fact, becoming too defensive.

Nintendo is doing a lot wrong online, and some wrong in connectivity. That I agree with. I just wouldn't characterize connectivity as as useless or as pure money grubbing as you do...

About a handful of those games make real good use of the connectivity, but most of them are pretty useless.

Even Animal Crossing's GBA Island Mode could be done in-game. It's still cool, but it doesn't add a lot to the game.

It doesn't need to add a LOT to the game to be worth having, it just needs to add something unique that couldn't be done as well if it was just on the cart... and there are some cases where that is certainly the case. The problem is that as you say Nintendo is trying to make this into a replacement for online, when what it is is really a niche form of game features and control. That is a big mistake on their part.

They're making the decisions now, not in 2006. That's what I'm worried about, as they still haven't changed their stance on online gaming.

I highly doubt that they've finished the N5 yet, or will in the recent future... I think they have the time to wise up on a harddrive well before it comes out.