How exactly is Nintendo going to make the NX a success?

[Darwinianevolution]

TheLastStarFighter said:

Darwinianevolution said:

And damage some of the biggest Nintendo franchises? Do you think people that just get Nintendo systems for Pokemon, for Smash, for Mario Kart... are going to keep buying them if they had to pay for the multiplayer? That is a significant number of consoles and games sold, and Nintendo wouldn't want to lose on them. Hell, Nintendo is trying to fix their image on the online multiplayer front with games like Splatoon, paying for the online would ruin it further. Also, Nintendo could use that to diferenciate themselves on that area, specially if they get most of the multiplats.

The subscription system may have been accepted, but competition in the market needs competition. Without it we get used to lose features, that is the problem.

a) Yes, I think most Nintendo fans will still buy the system and games with paid mulitplayer.  I know I would.

b) To get "most of the multiplats" Nintendo needs to make a more powerful system.  They can't make a powerful system, offer good online, sell at a reasonable price, have free online and make money.  Something needs to give, and charging for online can enable everything else.

c) No one cares that Nintendo's online is free right now.  No one is buying Wii U for that.

You seem to not have a full grasp of Nintendo's current situation.  Only 10 million people have picked up a Wii U.  That's disasterous.  Even if charging for online pissed off every single one of them but they made a better system with more games using the extra revenue and gathered just 11 million new customers - a fraction of the MS/Sony crowd - it would be more profitable for them.

Nintendo needs to do something new.

Maybe so, but for every WiiU sold, there are five 3DS sold. Blocking multiplayer would affect to both handheld and home console. If it affected to home consoles alone, people would abandon their home console completely for the handhelds, something that has been happening since the N64 days. Only this time, mobiles are eating all the possible new consumers, and the support for handhelds is getting smaller and smaller everyday. If it affected to handhelds only, Nintendo would have to abandon the hardware bussines because it would kill their biggest and strongest market.

Nintendo needs around 60-70 million hardware units to be confortably profitable. If they put multiplayer under a paywall, it's going to affect handhelds, even if those devices depend more on local multiplayer than home consoles.