Nintendo to Add DLC & Start Charging for Online Games
Nintendo just dropped a couple of bombs on its Wii owners. First of all they plan to allow downloadable content in future games - both disc and otherwise. This is good, but at the same time they appear to have no intention of using any kind of comprehensive storage system other than the Wii's very limited internal memory. Instead Nintendo keeps talking about compression and viewing manuals online only.
The big bomb comes in the fact that Nintendo now plans to start charging for certain online games. The transactions will happen from within the game, use Wii points and games that charge for online will be labeled as "Pay-and-Play". I'm pretty sure this is for large MMO games, but the idea of being charged to play Animal Crossing or a Pokemon MMO is disappointing given Nintendo's previous stance that Online should be free. Nintendo's online system isn't very feature-rich to begin with so charging to play online seems a bit ridiculous given that they don't have basic things like voice chat or region free online gaming. Nintendo also has the horrible friend code system that makes online gaming unnecessarily tedious and prohibitive.
Things can change between now and then - hell we don't even have all the details - but I've never payed to play online and I don't plan on starting now with Nintendo. I hope they really reevaluate these decisions because they don't sound very good.
