Nobody Wants to Pay & Play, Nintendo

So, yesterday, in a brilliant move to further piss on the hardcore gamer, Nintendo announced that it will start charging for certain games using a “Pay & Play” service that will extend to some online services. Yes, you heard that correctly, Nintendo is going to start charging people to use their “online services” on specific games. I’m sorry I just have to say that one more time: Nintendo. . . is going to start charging people to use their online services.

Before I begin with the rest of my article, I just want to be really clear with you guys. I love Nintendo. I am a huge fan of their products, and I have owned every single system they ever made including the Wii on the first day it came out. They are one of the best, if not the best, development company in the world. Finally, they are a shrewd business and one that, no matter what they do, I can usually find the business sense behind it to justify the action. So please, be calm and don’t flame me.

Back in 2002, Microsoft first announced their online services for their first console, the Xbox. They were pretty much the first console to offer an integrated online service out of any of the major competition (Nintendo, Sony). I say “pretty much” because the Sega Dreamcast did have a pretty neat online service when they first launched in 1998. Anyways, the Xbox Live system wasn’t spectacular, but it was something, and despite being billed yearly for the service at least it was revolutionary for console gaming. Nobody could argue that the same, or a better service could be found elsewhere.

Nintendo, on the other hand, was the last major console company to introduce an online system. In fact, it actually didn’t even really come out until a few months after the system launched (the first game to use the service was Pokemon Battle Revolution which got released June 25th here in the U.S.). In addition to being last to offer the service, Nintendo had also seen fit to offer us a gimped-up kid version of the internet. Unlike the PSN and Xbox Live, we do not get ID names and a friend list. No, instead we get “friend codes” which consists of 16 numbers that are console specific. If that wasn’t enough, however, those don’t really matter because each online game has its’ own friend code too! To top this all off, Nintendo deemed it unnecessary to provide any sort of means to communicate internally with other players while in online. Pretty messed up internet gameplay if you ask me.

Now, I am giving you a refresher-course on Nintendo’s online service mainly because I want to re-iterate how silly it is for them to start charging on a “Pay & Play” basis. All of these problems and faults with their system never really mattered because it was free. I can put up with all of those things very easily when I know that it’s not costing me a dime to use. However, now that they will start charging. . . that’s just no good. They don’t have a system that is worth paying for, and, as such, I will not pay for it. I can only hope that Super Smash Bros. Brawl comes minus this new “model” as I will not even pay for it to play that online, which is something I am really really looking forward too. . .

Feel free to read more HERE.