Nintendo's outdated online features and what needs to be done

[Darwinianevolution]

torok said:

Darwinianevolution said:

Nintendo using a paid online fee is a horrendous idea. Not only would that not bring that much money to the company, but it would effectively kill the sales of some of the most popular Nintendo games: Pokemon, Mario Kart, Smash... Online fees don't reward the player that pays, they punish the ones who don't. Not everyone wants (or is able) to spend 40 or 50 € per year to play online. Nintendo should keep its online free at all costs. If they want to make a special service to get all the DLC and special rewards, that's fine, but don't make paywalls just to squeeze the money out of their fans.

I don't like to see MP behind a paywall, even if I already had PS+ to get the free games. I rather pay because I want the games, than simply play to play online.

But X360 just showed us that gamers don't mind paying. Even worse, they will think the paid service is better than the free one. If they really cared, PS3 would have onslaughed 360 and it didn't happened. So Sony simply did the same.

The bolded isn't true. Charging for online is a cash cow. Sony had around 1 or 2M paying subscribers before the paywall. Now they have 10M+. Each one pays US$50 per year. That US$ 500M, each year. And the number just goes up and up. If Wii U had the same ratio, we would have at least 5M premium subscribers and US$ 250M per year. Looks great for me.

Don't get me wrong, I don't like paying for online. But 95% of the people simply don't care, even more now with the free games.

I don't think Nintendo would make more money from that kind of deal that if they keep their online free.

1.  Some of the best Nintendo games are based on multiplayer. If you install a paywall, most of those sales will go away.

2. Nintendo would need to give their users free games to make the deal worth the price. Since the 3rd party support and indies are just not the same on Nintendo consoles (at least on the home consoles), Nintendo would have to make deals with other developers. And with the small userbase of the home consoles, those would be expensive deals. Even most of the virtual console offerings aren't enough, specially when there's just so many ways to get those games through emulation, even more so than PS or XBox games.

3. A good chunk of hardware sales are from parents that want to buy their kids their first console. If you put a paywall, they will undoubtedly go to tablets and mobiles, and Nintendo is having problems mantaining that demographic already.

4. One of the main selling points of Nintendo consoles is their free online. Even if it's inferior to the competition, it's still free.

5. 3rd parties already don't want to do anything with Nintendo, so a online paywall would just give them another excuse to switch to other devices.

An online fee woul only make Nintendo look bad in the eyes of everyone.