11th February 2007, 2:42 PM
Quote:Except Blizzard didn't do that. They've had this system going since 1997 or so.
December 1996, actually -- Diablo I. And yes, they didn't just use some pre-existing system, they made it themselves; Battle.net was a major accomplishment, really, and a hugely successful one. They made back the costs (development and servers) by the great sales of their games. (And one reason why Guild Wars' online network works so well is that a few of the key people behind the development of Battle.net left early in the development of WoW because they disagreed with the direction the game was going in, instead founding Arena.net and making GW...)
Quote:It'll take time, it'll take money. Months of R&D and a major update to the wii operating system. If you want something that runs off software and is available for that particular game it came packaged with, well, that just seems like a waste. Why would the dev spend that time and money to offer chat and lobbies on a platform with free online play and no sign on fee? Again, they cant just throw pre-existing freeware on it and patch any bugs it may have later.
Time and money? No more than the browser did, and they made that. No, that's a really, really bad excuse, and no reasonable person should believe it. The answer, as I have said, lies elsewhere. It has nothing to do with costs or ability.
Quote:I'll add that Nintendo would have to add the support for USB keyboards and such, but it would be a snap to do so.
That would require an admission that contact with others is actually a good idea though, and NCL is resistant to that... (as far as I know the only DS game with communication (friends only) is Metroid Prime Hunters, which was made by American NST...)
What I would use as a headline for a post on this article: "NWR beats a dead horse to death again by saying that Nintendo's online service is in bad shape"
http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/edito...rtid=12892
Quote:From Nintendo World Report:
Good news.