I think most of us are aware of the Wii’s current lack of online support for games. A recent article stated that only 2% of Wii games have online functionality (compared to 67% for the PS3, and 77% for the 360). Online functionality for games seems to be quite important to both gamers and developers as another recent article states that games with online functionality tend to sell better than those without it.
There is also the question of additional content for games. Some developers appear to be shifting to the model of releasing stripped-down games, and then making add-ons and additional content available for download. To date, the 360 version of Guitar Hero II has sold over 650,000 song package downloads (over 2,000,000 individual songs). While the Wii version of Guitar Hero III will support online play, it has yet to be determined whether the Wii version will support additional song downloads.
How do you think this affects Nintendo? Could Nintendo lose developer support, and ultimately momentum/market share over this? How can Nintendo overcome this obstacle? What are your thoughts?
http://www.gamepro.com/news.cfm?article_id=133148
http://www.digitalhome.ca/content/view/1987/206/
