Nintendo Wii-U Online to be a paid service eventually – Video Games Update
Nintendo has stated that as opposed to the announcement at the Electronic Entertainment Expo this year, the online multiplayer on the upcoming console Wii-U will NOT be free forever.
This sounds a bit familiar as Microsoft did the exact same thing when they launched the Xbox 360 back in 2005. Xbox Live, which is essential to play online multiplayer, was free back in 2005.
However, as the 360 market share grew, Microsoft announced that it would be starting a subscription service for Xbox Live (XBL) with XBL Silver being the free version where you can just browse the network and communicate with your online friends and XBL
Gold being the paid version which included all the so called benefits of XBL Silver and was required for online multiplayer.
Sony on the other hand opted for free online multiplayer on the Playstation 3 but after looking at how successful Microsoft was with paid multiplayer for Xbox 360, the company later had to announce Playstation Plus, its own subscription service where members
would get better deals on the online store and get early access to game demos. Since basic online multiplayer was still free, not many fans have signed up for Playstation Plus.
Nintendo seems to be taking the Playstation route as company president, Satoru Iwata, slammed Xbox’s online pricing by saying, "We cannot promise that Nintendo will always provide you with online services free of charge no matter how deep the experiences
are that it may provide, But at least we are not thinking of asking our consumers to pay money to just casually get access to our ordinary online services."
Does this mean that Nintendo will also launch the Wii-U with free online multiplayer but shift to a paid subscription model once the sales pick up or is Nintendo going to take Sony’s route and offer additional online services for a monthly fee?
Microsoft is of the opinion that an XBL Gold membership is worth its price because not only do consumers get the best console online multiplayer experience, they get tons of other stuff like access to Hulu, Netflix, ESPN and HBO with additional discounts
on Arcade games.
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