Shigeru Miyamoto has told Mercury News that he’s not entirely sure whether Nintendo are behind or faster than the competition with regards to online features on Wii and Nintendo 3DS. Miyamoto has acknowledged that Nintendo has been slower in the past compared to other companies regarding online functionality but believes that what they’ve done so far has made sense from a business standpoint.
It’s true that for many years, Nintendo has been said to have been slow in online applications. And I think that’s been said for 10 years or more — even before Microsoft entered into the video game industry.
But the fact of the matter is that Nintendo has always been involved in the network business in one way or another. At least we have been continuing to experiment. The difference between Nintendo and other companies might be that Nintendo has always been trying to do something which makes sense from our business perspective, rather than trying to do something similar to other companies.
So I cannot tell if we are behind or faster. But when I am looking at how we are deploying our online business, I think what we are doing today is appropriate.
WAY BEHIND! the xbox 360’s online made the wii’s almost non-existent. minus the shop channel.
I’d love Xbox Live if the services that should be free were free(pretty much everything that you can do on the computer for free.) Other than having to pay for things, it’s a good service.
I don’t remember the last time I played my Wii online, I mostly use the Nintendo Channel online, and even on low quality settings, it still lags often.
soz bro, i think its an issue with internet speed, i never get lag
I never do except on my Wii for some odd reason.
I think they have done a stellar job with there type of online gaming
You’re retarded, evident by the fact that you used “there” instead of “their,” putting aside the fact that Nintendo’s online is absolute rubbish in comparison to others.
stop acting like a 14 year old and start respecting people!
what if he is a 14yr old? smart ass…
Than we’ll call him a 2 year old…dumb ass
You guys have to remember that Nintendo is a COMPLETELY different gaming company than Sony and Microsoft. Nintendo is focused more on family-friendly, yet intense fun, while Sony and Microsoft focus their online gaming features on more violent and “cool,” with major intensity. Nintendo doesn’t really care about Call of Duty’s gaming as much as they do with Mariokart or Super Smash Bros. Nintendo has done a FANTASTIC job given what their specialty is.
No they haven’t family friendly does NOT equal shitty online services. It would take much for Nintendo to set up a DECENT networking service department.
Games like MarioKart and Smash Bros. would benefit greatly from a properly unified online service, Smash Bros. Brawl’s online services were piss poor.
@Schlem I completely agree!
I think it is great for Mario Kart and Brawl.
Do you really played Brawl ONLINE? It lags like shit!
Thats probably just your net, I never lagged
um no, if you talked to ANYBODY about brawl’s online, they will say that it has a ton of lag
im “anybody” and i say it doesnt lag, and i have two friends who agree with that too
It doesn’t lag nearly as much with friends, if you try to play with four random people, there’s a ton of lag. Even if it didn’t have lag, its still a terrible service compared to other fighters
It dosen’t lag, but there are a lot of rage quitters.
Brawl is laggy online but it’s not unplayable laggy if that’s what you mean.
Wow…that slowmo that the game does when you play online is the lag. The Wii compensates lag by marking the timing of the game slower. Slower internet means slower clock, and if one person has bad lag then it bleeds that timing to everyone’s system. The online isn’t slowmo mode for brawl. It’s lag.
Oh, and nintendo is a totally different Video Game company then Microsoft or Sony as they do totally different types of games, plus the FC thing is not as bad as it seems.
Mature much?
If he is retarded then you are an assho!e.
What happened to freedom of speech?? :/
He makes use of it?
ea will improove their online.
No it wonts valves bests.
You must be living in a fucking hole to think this.
no one cares anymore anyway, wii u is having an awesome online system being built as we speak, and nintendo are taking it proper seriously, getting advice from EA and going round asking all developers what they want. and we already know its going to be better than xbox live cos we know that developers are telling nintendo exactly what they didnt like about xbox live so that nintendo will avoid those things
Plus it’ll be free. :)
I’ll believe it when i see it
Needs better online, Brawl lags like shit. The game play is way behind the buttons.
Same with Tatsunoko vs. Capcom :(
You’re behind, Nintendo. I get your reasons for it, but you’re behind.
Then again, if bad online stuff is the price to pay for all the unique stuff Nintendo pumps out, then I’m fine paying it. I have my 360 for online gaming anyway. :-p
his not wrong. business decisions will vary company to company.
online was already in place for sony and microsoft, not nintendo. it made sense for both those companies to utilize it like crazy while for nintendo, it would of cost a lot of money to develop the infrastructure for online while the use for it wasn’t as large for their company as it was for others.
Just as long as it’s kick-ass, I don’t give a damn.
Most of their games didn’t need the online functionality anyway. Ninteno’s game are unique unlike PS3 and XBOX360’s…
That’s only because the Wii has crap third party games; the same third party games everyone is now excited for with the Wii U; the same third party games that make the top of the “best selling game of the year” list.
Faulty logic is faulty. Those third party games only make the top of the “best selling game of the year” list BECAUSE they were available on multiple systems.
Thats not really true, most of the games which people are excited for on the Wii are either exclusives or first party, those which are third party are properly made on the Wii, crap third party hasn’t done as well looking at sales
Yeah, I’m not exited about the party games. These games never got Best selling games EVER. And did you forget about the Kinect? And what does this have to do with the online?
Not “party” games, “Third Party” games. Which means it has been created by another company.
For God Sake Nintendo Get Rid Of Friend Codes!!!!!!!!! I Want To Have The Wii-U Online Play To Be At Least As Good As The Ps3 System Which To Be Honest We All Know Is Far Supereour To The Wiis online, sincerely a big nintendo fan…
just a little tip, it’s very annoying to read a text with so many capital letters. Try and steer clear from this.
Sorry im just trying to attract attention to my post!
Just a little tip, it’s very annoying to read a text that refuses to begin a sentence with a capital letter. Try and steer clear from this.
I think the universal friend-codes from the 3DS are just perfect, i mean in the Xbox you have to create retarded Gamertag games, while in the 3DS you can make any name you want, you don’t need to create a new name if you don’t want to, let alone to write the name in the invitation.
^ This comment totally makes since of fc’s.
mario kart 7 begs to differ.
creating comunity codes makes having universal friends codes utterly pointless.
so you want an online system that gets hacked every 3 months and makes you update your games with 100 mb updates instead of 2mb on xbox?
What Nintendo should do is make it so you can register an account. I said this on another article and I still think it’d be the wise thing to do. I love the eShop and Wii Shop, don’t get me wrong, but what if someone has to move to a new system cause of problems with their first or whatever? They’d have to spend all that money AGAIN on the games. Which, yes, I get that’s why Nintendo does it because it’d make them more money, but that’s not fair to the customer when they already purchased the product. Nintendo’s better than that, I know that, but they have yet to prove it.
Another thing is they should get better servers if they haven’t yet. I remember Brawl matches were a damn joke because of lag. I don’t know if that’s been improved or not, but it was ridiculous anyways. Not to mention people kept getting kicked off of WiFi on Pokemon games during battles/trades. /=
If this rumor of an appstore is true, then that could put Nintendo on the Online map in a positive light, not as the class clown. Though I’d like it also if they went with Valve. I think the Wii U would be an awesome place to play Portal and Portal 2 on. And Steam’s online service is actually RELIABLE. I see nothing bad coming from an app store + Valve partnership. Valve has an ENORMOUS following compared to the junk of EA. It should be a no brainer for Nintendo.
this… wait how do you do that up arrow thing?
Shift 6
I see what you mean, but either Nintendo would have to have a shop for their games and then a shop for Steam games, or Steam would have to make a separate Steam shop for Nintendo, since I doubt they would be keen on Steam suddenly being overwhelmed by thousands of WiiWare and Virtual Console games being added all at once .
I totally agree. I’ve purchased so much on my Wii and have started making purchases on my 3DS but I’d love to be able to feel secure with my purchases. For example, if a 3DS 2 gets released in the next two or three years, if I want to take my old system to Gamestop to trade-up, I’d want to be able to keep my games. I’ve been having problems with my 3DS and want to return it and exchange it for a new one but I’ve already bought stuff so I’m not really sure what to do.
We should have accounts, maybe connected to Club Nintendo, where are purchase are stored, that way when we link are accounts with a new system, we can easily re-download our purchases.
Yes, this might result in people giving their games away. And that sucks for Nintendo but those of us who pay for our games shouldn’t be punished. And that’s what it is. Those of us who pay are being screwed over because some people are less than honest. I don’t think that’s fair. And I’m sure there’s a way for Nintendo to work something out. Maybe codes that you have to request via Club Nintendo? And if people request codes more than a certain amount of times, Nintendo just sends an email saying you’ve reached your limit.
Or like iTunes. If you buy something, it’s linked to your account. I used my sister’s iTunes account to buy something, she had credit that she wasn’t using, but I couldn’t watch/listen to what I bought unless I was logged into her account. Something similar to that could work.
for a little longer the 3ds is still under warranty. Send it in and they give you a dif. 3DS with all your downloads
Nintendo, i love you….but UR SOOOO BEHIND!!!!!
A lot of this could be down to a mix of keeping face and also Miyamoto’s own outlook on gaming.
I think that Nintendo has always just had a different approach to online gaming than other companies. I always felt that the Virtual Console was nearly perfect, though I’d prefer a better way of arranging downloads for it myself like a catalogue instead of individual channels, but the actual content is decent. Desired features are coming through, it’s just not necessarily in the way or to the level many would like. The update to support join requests on the 3DS shows promise.
Then again I’m not much of an online gamer.
Didn’t Nintendo admit that they weren’t confident in the online realm before and that they were seeking outside help for the Wii U? It will be interesting to see what changes the Wii U brings.
I’m not sure if they admitted that (they might wtf do I know) but they did admit to pursue a more open/third party friendly online structure, making steam and EA perfect candidates as they also provide excellent third party games and support.
Nintendo made a choice of being behind and now the Wii has sold 94.6 million units while 360 has sold 63.9 and PS3 60.1.
The Gamecube sold 21.4 million in comparison so you go ahead and tell Nintendo they’re/were using the wrong buisiness stragedy.
No, the business strategy has proven very sound, I think though people are looking from a user perspective. I’ll admit I can see why people would want Nintendo to be more ambitious with their online for Wii U even if it may not affect me.
Yeah….its there lack of sustanable software that is killing them.
Surely you must mean new software. Nintendo has the most sustainable games in history!
But most of their sales are probably from non-gamers who bought the Wii because of its low price point and because it has Netflix and those kind of gimmicks. Yes the Wii has Nintendo’s franchises, but I bet more than half of the people who bought a Wii to game on only got it so they could play Nintendo’s first party franchise, if you took away Nintendo’s franchise, the Wii would have almost nothing going for it as far as games. When you look at the 360 and PS3 sales, I bet most of those sales are from people that are dedicated to gaming.
What exactly are you saying? Would the Wii be able to sell 130 mil. lifetime sales if it had better online? Make a point goddamnit, not a pile of obvious facts.
I did make a point when I brought up those facts, the Wii sold the amount of consoles it did because it’s cheap and appeals to non-gamers. It didn’t sell that much consoles because it’s an awesome gaming machine.
Well, then. I guess our opinions were too different for me to understand your logic.
You may proceed…
I have no idea what you’re trying to say. What point are you trying to make from this? The fact is, the Wii sold well. So what are you trying to say?
Damn you guys are thick. The Wii’s sales mean nothing when compared to the PS3 and 360, the Wii isn’t targeted to the same consumers. Nintendo tries to appeal to the larger “casual” gaming crowd while Sony and Microsoft are trying to appeal to the dedicated “core” gamers. If anything, you should be looking at Nintendo’s sales as compared to Apple’s sales because the way I see it, people that buy a Wii could have just bought an Apple TV but they wanted something that they could occasionally game on. As a gaming system, and I’ll say it again, the only thing the Wii has going for it are its first party franchises.
But do you honestly believe only “hardcore” players bought 360 and PS3s as well, hell I know people who bought the PS3 solely for the fact that it was a Blu-ray player. The fact of the matter is that for the Wii Nintendo made the right call, Wii U people will be expecting different things.
I understand what you’re saying, but I think your definition of a “core” gamer is off. A core gamer is someone who has been playing games since they were little, grew up with a few different consoles and franchises. Thereby Nintendo’s base is are the true core gamers, rivalled only by the PC gaming crowd. The ones who grew through the SNES and N64 forward. The ones who have stuck with Nintendo through all that are the ones who can call themselves core.
As far as I see, the reason Sony took off like a rocket was because they released a new format at a time when Sega was dying and Nintendo was still using cartridges for their consoles. The 3rd party developers jumped on board with them and it’s been that way since. But Nintendo is not stupid, they are just a gaming company, the biggest and best in the world, but still just a gaming company.
So if they had spent all of their money trying to over power Sony and Microsoft with hardware specs, they would have gone out of business already. Because even if they beat them there Sony and MS can just pour much more money into their games division and crush Nintendo. So Nintendo changed the game instead, they decided to make it about the gameplay and the experience. While Sony and MS were just pumping out the same console but with better specs, Nintendo changed the game with the DS and then the Wii. Bringing games to those who otherwise not play them, basically giving birth to th future generation of gamers.
That is why they win, because they are the only ones innovating. So in hindsight Sony and MS entering the industry may have been the best thing to happen to us gamers, it forced progress.
The lack of good online wasnt what put them to the top, it was the motion gimic, casual market and other factors that did. Thinking that the online alone is what kept the 360/PS3 from atleast catching up to the Wii is just incoherent lol.
Did I ever say that the lack of online put them on the top? No. I only said that their business stradegy was enough for them to win this generation. In other words: Nintendo timed their entry to the online gaming better. Now go learn to fucking read or something.
i was trying to be nice but fine, this whole fucking post is about wether nintendo is a ahead or behind with online service, all you stated was that nintendo made a choice of staying behind, therefore sold 90+ million units, now to your idiotic
little piece of shit mind, this might mean something else, but to anyone else this means, they lack good online and made 90+MiL
if you wanna get your point across
LEARN TO FU KING WRITE
Why the fuck do you keep changing the subject? I said Nintendo sold better than the competition despite lack of top notch online, and then asked people to question their business stragedy, which you now are doing.
Please, never work as a business manager in the future. You’d sink that ship like a fucking rock.
the subject is the state of nintendos online… read the first post I replied to (THAT I REPLIED TO, not anyone elses) maybe you cleared out what you ment in later post, but your first post clearly says ‘Nintendo made a decision of staying behind and now has sold 90+ million units’ (this whole blog post is about theire online state) to any normal person this means youre trying to say they decided to have shitty online while Sony/Microsoft didnt, so nintendo Outsold them….
you really need to start typing/writing with more extent. you cant expext us to READ more than what you actualy write down. dont worry i dont blame you, i blame your school district.
“to any normal person this means youre trying to say they decided to have shitty online while Sony/Microsoft didnt, so nintendo Outsold them….”
That’s your problem. I never EVER said Nintendo won because they decided to have “shitty” online capabilities, all I said was that they won greatly despite the lack of great online and therefore can’t be blamed for making the wrong decision business-wise.
I don’t blame your school district (they probably do fine, and education is not the problem here), I blame your parents.
In therms of online gameplay lag & speed, Nintendo is close to the competition, but adding friends is a bitch to do…
I believe they said that they’d rectify it on the Wii U. Thank god.
I’ll believe it when I see it.
Nintendo’s online way sucks a lot for both DS, Wii and 3DS. Friend codes are a loss.
Just make Valve your partner, Nintendo. You will rise to the heavens!
Yes, they should do that.
Yes, friend codes are a bitch on wii, but what exactly is wrong with them on 3ds and DS? I mean, I hated friend codes on wii, because you would never memorize your friend code if you wanted to add a friend at school or something, but for a handheld, you could just take it out of your pocket and add each other, as though you’re exchanging phone numbers. It seemed convenient to me.
(I do agree with the Valve thing though. :p)
Behind. They’re trying, and I get that. But when we wanted a messaging service for the 3DS, we got Swapnote. What the hell is that? I want to be able to message my friends while i’m playing a game. Not quit the game, open up swapnote, draw a message, wait for them to open Swapnote, reply back and so on.
i thinks nintendos needs betters online for to gets games ands demos.alsos to watchs the gay porns on the bigs screens in hd.
It would help if you had better grammer…
It would help if you spelled “grammar” correctly…
Lolings to thats.
gyes ignore him he is just a kid.
dude ‘-‘ stop spelling “guys” wrong! oh.. and fake peteriuss… ur a funny asshole XD! i always crack on ur comments!
misspelling “guys” *
All I want is this:
A.) Faster, lag-free play (thinking particularly of Smash Bros here)
B.) More means of communication and customisation
That is all.
Online is just a nice bonus and shouldn’t be the main focus. I prefer NIntendo staying single and local multiplayer while occasionally having online multiplayer in games that it would make sense to have it (and not just tacked on).
I agree 100%
Yeah I think it’s safe to say that the online world regarding Nintendo seems like an afterthought. Can’t wait to see what they do with the Wii U!
Nintendo has definitely been behind in the online department, but they’re slowly turning things around with the 3DS. Hopefully the WiiU will be on par/ better than XBL.
heres a little newsflash for all you lil wippersnappers……..online for gaming isn’t everything.
Exactly
:D I’ll prefer local over online any day, fighting and playing with your friends in one room is the best experience when playing games for me.
Nintendo is quite far behind but I really dont mind, what they do have for online, especially on the 3DS is great. I like Nintendo’s approach, and I think they should keep going as they are.
I’m convinced that they will do a great job with the Wii U’s online.
Nintendo needs to just my your Club Nintendo account your login instead of messing with friend codes.
Stick to making video games… Your analysis of Nintendo’s Online status is terribly mistaken. Nintendo is behind, and sure as hell is not faster. Even for whatever model you are basing your comment on.
Anyway, still the best damn game systems in the land, but online support either sucks, or is not intuitive enough for us to utilize.
“The difference between Nintendo and other companies might be that Nintendo has always been trying to do something which makes sense from our business perspective, rather than trying to do something similar to other companies.”
This is Nintendo’s problem, they do want they want to do rather than doing things that would get the dedicated gamers to buy their systems. They’re losing a big part of the market by focusing on getting the “casual” gamers, why not try to appeal to the dedicated and casual gamers?
I think that the paragraph means “We won’t rip off anyone”.
Yes but why go through trial and error when its already been done correctly. plus it would make investors AND gamers happy.
^This.
In my opinion, Nintendo is way behind with the Wii and DS (except Mario Kart on both systems), and with the 3DS they caught up but is still in last. Hopefully the Wii U will push them into second place.
1. Improve servers for all online games until they are equivalent to Mario Kart.
2. Get Valve/Steam to join them.
3. Allow trading of Friend Codes to other people online, OR, allow naming for online stuff and allow online trading of names.
4. Graphics don’t make the game (Skyward Sword) ((which are still pretty good, and I’m not talking about colors)) but, lets get with the program.
can’t think of much more than that that needs to happen.
*Improve servers for all online games until they are equivalent to Mario Kart and Monster Hunter Tri. :D
I think the 3DS’s online is pretty good. The Wii? Never tried it. Can’t wait for those demos.
Dangit, Shiggy. Even Die-hard Nintendo supporters will tell you that you’re light-years behind the competition.
Nintendo will decimate online play with the wii u so im not even worried im just worried whether or not im gona have to pay for online and sure xbl is great but with out it xbox 360 is shit
nintendo, your online is trash. and yes you are behind, grow some balls and step up your game up for the wii u.
Now I only need to save up money to be able to AFFORD the wiiu :/
You and the whole world lol but its worth it
Doesn’t make sense really, wasted my time reading.
I love Nintendo and such but i agree that they are behind in the online race….but there’s always room for improvement :)
He does have a point. From a business point of view, the Wii’s online is simple yet cheaper to maintain. However, that can get them so far. The one on the 3DS is better, specially that now it loads faster and has many more options. Let’s keep in mind that they’re talking about gaming downloadable content as opposed to movies, tv shows, retail versions of games, etc. It seems they didn’t plan to have anything other than downloadable games on their service.
The eShop is much better than that, which has been getting weekly new games. Last week we got Mighty Switch Force, then VVVVVV, and next week we’re getting Samurai Sword Destiny or something like that, which is a Muramasa clone. Not bad I guess.
LOL. Possibly the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard miyamoto say.
Second dumbest thing is having EA help make their online network. Or
Which part was dumb?
Explain?
I’m sure that Nintendo will fix this on the Wii U.
Hopefully Nintendo could bring it next year with better online.
You guys have to understand that in Japan, the 360 pretty much doesn’t exist. It sells so poorly that it’s offerings like XBLA flies under the radar for Nintendo. In America, it’s a whole different story. Only way Miyamoto would know how huge XBLA is would be if NoA/Reggie informed him.
You can say that Sony has their own PSN, and I’m sure Nintendo is not only aware of that, but also looks at statistics, graphs, charts, sales, you name it. Is Nintendo slow to adapt to the ways and functions of the internet and online play? Of course they are. Heck, the Dreamcast had online play way back in 1999, even though it was Phantasy Star Online that (if memory serves) was the first to take advantage of Dreamcast’s online.
Nintendo isn’t really about delivery of content, since they seem to love and prefer retail, at least with their main AAA games anyway. Nintendo’s almost always been about user interface, user friendliness, and using the controller to further immerse the player into the game. Nintendo doing HD 1080p graphics and serious online play that’s lag-free with leader boards and accomplishments/achievements is going to make it seem like Nintendo is a console generation behind. They’re a company that does things when they’re ready, not just because the technology is there. They’re not NVidia or ATM or Apple or Sony. They’re a video game driven business first and foremost, and they’re going to make hardware and software to drive that business further and expand that business model, and also expand the gaming industry as well. I commend Nintendo for creating more new players with the Wii than what has been done since (I would say, anyway) the NES back in the 1980s.
With all that being said (whew!), I’m strongly looking forward to what the Wii U will offer regarding new ways to play, new types of gaming experiences, and (this is the shallow part) better graphics. Obviously it all comes down how good software content is, and in a way, that’s my biggest concern with the Wii U and Nintendo in general. Can they get third parties to bring their latest and greatest to the Wii U? Or will it be the Wii all over and again where Nintendo fans and Wii U owners will worry whether or not a third-party game will come out for their system of choice? It’s been frustrating not being able to play games like Batman Arkham City, Grand Theft Auto 4, Portal 2, Skyrim, and so many others because they weren’t released on Wii. I remember in an interview around E3 where Reggie himself acknowledges that there were many great games that came out and didn’t see release on the Wii because it wasn’t HD and it wasn’t technologically capable of running those games. So I’m hoping that Nintendo realizes and knows that it isn’t smart (in the long-term) to release a console that’s underpowered, especially compared to other consoles.
….
egymario if u are here i just to make sure that i gave u my friend code and its on ur 3ds letter box check it!
i just want to make sure*
all the game i’ve played on the wii online always worked for me so i dont get when people have big issues with it and you know i now have a ps3 the only difference i see is the psn is less cheaper and it a little bit faster to join a game .. ps3 = 360 wii was juste a bit underdevelopped since it release juste want something to bitch about .. what a world…
Yes I think Nintendo is right.
Why do we want all the same on every platform.
Nintendo do what other don’t. This is what I read here.
Main reason why Wii is the best for me.
and this is where we find that being diferent can be realy hard but when you ignore people that are against you, you can beat them anyway :)
Having finally picked up a 360 this holiday, I am disgusted with Wii’s online.. 3DS is making strides, however.
I’m not really an online gamer (but I do play MK7 online). Single player games are in IMO more amusing because miscommunications/delayed replies just mess up online gaming.
The online features in games are wonderful but what I’m looking for in games is the enjoyment I get when playing it alone or with friends w/o having to go online.
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