Once again, the age-old question about Nintendo’s commitment to the online arena has come up, with Shigeru Miyamoto doing his best to assure the world that his company cares about the Internet. He also asked a question that some may find ominious — should Nintendo charge a subscription fee?
“… Probably the other thing that we are desperate to realise is the core [online] business structure,” explains the world famous developer. “Do we need to demand customers pay monthly fees to enjoy online activities? Or give an online subscription that is free of charge, but then offer something extra for people that pay, so that they get some extra value? With these core business strategies I think we are less active than we should be.”
Miyamoto also denies that Nintendo hasn’t been taking big enough steps to get Wii fans online: “To be honest, I think it’s rather unfair whenever I hear such comments — that Nintendo isn’t proactive when it comes to its online strategy. The fact of the matter is that we always want all Wii consoles to be connected online, all the time, so Nintendo has never been less than proactive in that kind of endeavor.”
Would you pay to take the Wii online? It’s certainly an attractive prospect to any company, but I rarely, if ever, play online Wii games and there’s no way it could justify an Xbox Live style fee system without an Xbox Live style library. It’ll take more than The Conduit to make Nintendo’s offerings worth money.
