Nintendo Won’t Promise That Its Online Service Will Remain Free
While the Nintendo Network isn’t exactly as big as the PSN or Xbox Live, the one thing that people are grateful for is the fact that it’s free. No subscription is needed to access online multiplayer, or to access other premium online features. However, you might not want to just take that all for granted, judging by what Nintendo’s president Satoru Iwata said at a recent Nintendo shareholders meeting.
He said that Nintendo can’t rule out the possibility to charge for “deep” online services for the Wii U. However, he goes on to explain that “ordinary online services” would not charged, remaining free to all. “We have a wide variety of consumers, from the ones who enthusiastically play video games to those playing more casually, who are not always interested in them but try to play a game only when it has become a public topic or play it just during certain periods, like a year-end season and summer vacation. We therefore believe that services which ask our consumers to obtain paid memberships are not always the best.”
While Nintendo may go for a subscription at some point, judging by what he’s saying I don’t think we have to worry about being locked out of online services in the same way that Xbox Live locks out non-Gold members from doing much of anything. My guess is that Nintendo will instead decide to charge online fees for games on a case-by-case basis, depending on how “hardcore” the game is. And, in the end I’m willing to bet that there will be plenty of people who will buy up these subscriptions.
