PSP: Online at launch. ... good job dropping the ball, Nintendo

[A Black Falcon]

My point is this: how many people have, at home, WiFi networks? The answer is, in this country, not that many. Most people have cables. Yes, WiFi is great for internet on laptops, but what percentage of people with laptops have wifi? I'm sure most of them want it, but how many actually HAVE it?

Saying 'WiFi only" for your game system's internet play is kind of like what Microsoft did with the X-Box being broadband only... only with something with even less support and just as fast, and more prevalant, alternatives.

Yes, X-Box Live has been a success. To Microsoft the fact that a lot of people don't have cable/dsl (and many people can't get it if they wanted it) doesn't matter, like you suggest the preponderance of people without home wireless networks wouldn't matter to a company running a wireless handheld gaming network.

I've read articles about whole cities getting wireless networks, how it'll change everything, etc, etc, but I don't see many places doing that -- only a couple of towns and cities -- and given the high expenses of doing so I doubt that it'll become really common anytime soon. As I've said before, about the only possible result of some system that only supported wireless internet would be a few more people who already have cable or DSL changing from wired to wireless networks. But given the additional expense, technical hassles, etc, I doubt that it'd be a massive number. For most people the only places with wireless internet will continue to be the occasional restaurant or coffeshop or hotel with wireless internet. (the town I live in isn't listed as having any hotspots on that website (indeed the nearest listed one is a half hour away), but there is one, in a coffeshop, I'm pretty sure. And for going there and using a laptop, perhaps it makes sense... but that isn't what we are talking about here. We're talking about portable handheld games.

How many people are going to go to such a place (probably regularly, for long periods of time) to play online games?)

And how many people want to have to go to a restaurant, bar, or coffeshop to play their PSP games online? How many people would do that? And you'd have to stay, too... have to be within that area the wireless support covers... I just can't see it being massively successful with any kind of broad market. Oh, tech people will love it, but the general population? They'll just be left wishing they could play online PSP games or will only be able to quite infrequently. And having such a limitation on the potential success of your online service just seems silly.

Yes, putting wires all over your house is a pain... I know, we have computers in different rooms on three floors (the two floors and in the basement) at home, and it's done with some really long cords coming up through the floor and then going under the carpet up the stairs. Laying all that out must have been a pain. And for my sister (who has a laptop) not being able to be anywhere other than one place and be on the net is annoying. But are we going to get wireless soon? No. Between the fact that you need all new equipment (cards for your computers, wireless router, etc), which costs a bundle, and the security problems wireless networks have (this is definitely a concern anyone thinking of going wireless must consider!), I very highly doubt it... and all the evidence I know of suggests that this situation is far from abnormal.