Wii online functionality will be completely free

link

Very good news for Nintendo Wii watchers, and something that hopefully will put pressure on Sony/Microsoft to make more of their online systems free aswell.

sony already stated there service is free

Sony also hinted at possible consumable-type costs though, which I don\'t like either (ie, XBL marketplace type idea).

If there\'s one thing I don\'t want it\'s to pay for certain items/upgrades/mods that could have been part of a game, but weren\'t released for profit reasons.  We\'ll see what they do in the end, but Nintendo is saying completely free.

Not to rain on your parade, but just because it\'s free doesn\'t automatically mean it will be good.  People are touting how inexpensive and economical the Wii will be, good for them.  Enjoy playing a handful of purchase-worthy games at 480p with no dolby digital sound.  As much as I like Nintendo, they have a lot of convincing to do to get me to nab a Wii.

And what about those classic Nintendo games... those won\'t be free.

My biggest concern about Nintendo comes from it\'s controller, but judging from how they\'re doing the DS online stuff, they\'re looking like the best of the three companies in that area.  Once I play the Wii, assuming the controller doesn\'t piss me off too bad, and it has some good games (but I would imagine it will) then I\'ll be buying one to back up my PS3.

Yeah I\'m still curious about how I\'ll take to the remote, at least for complex games. Tennis should be a snap and I look forward to that.

Online will be free a la DS so this isn\'t a surprise. Friend Codes are rumored to be returning, but I hope it\'s not as prohibitive as Animal Crossing.  Aside from 3 ventures online with a "friend," I haven\'t been able to take that game online at all. It\'s actually irritating.

At least in games like Tetris DS and Mario Kart DS, you could enter random battles.

But in AC:WW you need to find people\'s name, town name and friend code online then arrange to meet them when they\'re playing. It\'s terrible.

I hope Nintendo abolishes Friend Codes for Wii. There are kids on Xbox Live and they\'re typically the vulgar ones. That\'s been my experience. Nintendo isn\'t protecting them, they\'re just ticking off people like me.

But when you want to be family friendly so bad, who knows...

sony already stated there service is free

So? Thats still great news for the Wii. We now have confirmation it will be free

And it\'s equally good news for Sony. mm was responding to the second half of Fatal\'s sentence.
 

something that hopefully will put pressure on Sony/Microsoft to make more of their online systems free aswell.

It\'ll only be free until they have to charge for it.

And it\'s equally good news for Sony. mm was responding to the second half of Fatal\'s sentence.

Heh after experiencing mm\'s many negative posts I feel like he would have responded the same even if that part was missing

[Living-In-Clip]

Friend codes are the gayest thing ever. I truly do not know how they ever made it out into the public, I would of thought even half way decent testing would of ruled them unfriendly and not a good idea.

Great news. Online gameplay should be free if the users are the once who host each game. Hopefully this will put pressure on Xbox Live going free even if its just for online gameplay.

However, I agree with what FatalXception said about content being taken out of games and being sold later.

[Jumpman]

Not to rain on your parade, but just because it\'s free doesn\'t automatically mean it will be good.  People are touting how inexpensive and economical the Wii will be, good for them.  Enjoy playing a handful of purchase-worthy games at 480p with no dolby digital sound.

Welcome to like 95% of America.

might want to lower that number a bit

[Jumpman]

might want to lower that number a bit

94?