How goes WoW, Weez? Give up yet or still plodding along?

DLC = Wii Points/money

MMO = supscription/monthly fee

I don't give a damn since I play FFXI and it's only $12.95 + $1 (extra character, but worth it, not like how WoW's characters are set up with classes LOL! WoW + 1 character = stuck with ONE CLASS for good, but you can make a lot more characters) a month. And it's GOOD too paying the monthly fee. That way they can update the games with new content (which isn't charge the time it happens), have server maintenance and patches for game errors can be handled by the company, which is a good thing.

My first reaction: F#@$#

After thoughts: Maybe less F#@$# ... the future will tell.

Well, I don't know why so many people are panicking and whining without reading between the lines. Only the games whose covers have an ORANGE Nintendo Wi-Fi logos will utilise PTP features.

This implies that a number of games in the future will continue to have free online, while a few (like MMOs) charge you to play online.

All I gotta say is if they're planning to do this, they'd better do something about storage or I'm gonna be pissed. On paying, as long as it isn't the full thing I don't really care, I'll just not buy the add ons and play the free online games. I completely ignore Xboxlive for the reason that they charge. Why can't there be a free service with adds or something in lobby menus and maybe less options for the player?

They're a company companies have to think about bottom line and sustainable income. The better a company does the better it's shareholders expect it to do that's just the way things are.

It's costing someone money to offer online gaming - and paying is just a way of life. Sure, it was free, but so was a lot of stuff online. It happens. If you don't like it, just sell your Wii. Otherwise, I'd recommend cutting someone's yard, babysit or beg your folks for the loot. If you have a job, just save up. Free things happen, but they aren't forever.

Bottom line - if you want to get a game that requires you to pay to play online, if you want to play online, pay up, bub.

As the pay-and-play only apply to MMOs and other types of games with a similar nature, I'm okay.

Can't wait to see what kind of downloadable content we will get.

Edit: Hopefully the downloadable content can work from SD cards, or are stored in some other external source.

Yah 100 Posts!!! 

Interesting point you're making Bod, but I think you're missing the point a bit. If Sony's and Microsofts profits aren't high enough that's caused by their strategy. In a world where Nintendo can make a profit on the Gamecube hardware sales, without even talking about the games, there's no need for Sony to have declining profits on a 120 million selling gameconsole, unless they intent to or have a failing business model.

For Microsoft we know that it's their strategy to not bother about profits too much, in the sense that it's A goal and not THE goal. Their main strategy behind the Xbox and the 360 is to enter the livingrooms, mainly to push their software and coding properties.

Back to the declining profits. This year there were software developers that made enormous profits and eneormous losses and in between. This has nothing to do with low revenues, although games have gotten cheaper through time. I have the box of Donkey Kong Country for SNES here and it cost 180 Dutch guliders, which is about 80 euro. In current value that's probably well over a 100 euro or 150 dollar. The main reason is that most companies don't understand the market in which they operate. I never seen a business in which so many stupid development and business decisions are made as in the game industry. Part of that has to do with it being on the border of being an artform and making money, part has to do with increasing technology and part with it being a fairly young industry.

A good example of a stupid business decisions or bad management:  People blame everyone but themselves for failing. A good example is the Wii. Every company should have had at least one game ready for it in case it became a succes, only Ubisoft had, in other businesses every missed opportunity means someone will be held accountable, not in this case. Here the excuses were plenty. A year after the Wii started its rise to become the fastest selling console ever the 3rd party developers still haven't jumped on the bandwagon en masse. Which is strange considering the rise in stock value Capcom experienced once it announced Monster Hunter 3 for Wii. Instead they keep telling things like: "We can't compete with Nintendo", "The public only wants mini-games", "It's success will be short lived" etc. That might be good for fanboys and nice forum discussions, and maybe they're right, but from a business perspective you should at least make a serious effort. Instead they look at each other and say: "well dev A doesn't do anything so we won't"'. Last year would have been an excellent opportunity to make money with that little competition.

Another good example of doubtfull asset management are the Mega-Projects that are currently going for PS3. These are absolutely ridiculous. It is rumoured that MGS4 costs 70 million, which, in case of a $20,- dollar revenue per sold game will need 3.5 million games sold to break even. Final Fantasy 13 will maybe even cost more than MGS4. Developers are more busy with creating the best game ever than to make profits, which is good from a gamers perspective, but not really from a business side.

So to conlclude, I think the problem lies within the industry and not with the lack of potential revenue.

Mario Kart and SSBB online are free so I don't really care. Actually, if an animal crossing or pokemon MMO were involved, I'd be more than happy to pay.

We actually agree, generally speaking. We're just looking at this from different angles.

Look at my first suggestion: decrease the power and technological sophistication of the consoles. Nintendo has managed to keep profitability high by minimizing costs. You agree that the people suffering most are those that are spending exorbinantly: the people making 70 million dollar games and such.

And we agree that the answer is: "Stop making 70 million dollar games," I just noted that this answer isn't palatable to the 360/PS3 consumer. The big budget, epic games like Halo and Final Fantasy and Metal Gear are the headliners of these consoles. The Wii is overlooked precisely because it isn't as epic and the graphics aren't as good. 

There are two ways to bring finances into line: spend less or make more. We seem to agree that spending less is the obvious solution, but my point is that many people don't seem to be willing to accept that. Not just developers, but some players, too.