Microsoft and Sony have spent the last decade developing and implementing deep, centralized online networks for their respective platforms. Nintendo hasn’t. But surely they’ve learned from their mistake and will be righting the ship when their next console launches, right? Wrong.
In a recent interview with Forbes, Nintendo of America President Reggie Fils-Aime explained that the company will once again be taking a backseat and letting third parties establish an eclectic set of their own networks on the Wii U. While it was nice to hear him say, “we’ve acknowledged that we need to do more online“, this probably isn’t what most gamers had in mind.
“For Wii U, we’re going to take [our online capabilities] one step further, and what we’re doing is creating a much more flexible system that will allow the best approaches by independent publishers to come to bear. So instead of a situation where a publisher has their own network and wants that to be the predominant platform, and having arguments with platform holders, we’re going to welcome that. We’re going to welcome that from the best and the brightest of the third party publishers.“
Again, this sort of thing happens on the Wii right now, and I’m sure that just about any multiconsole owner would agree that its an inferior and hassle-filled setup as opposed to the competition’s streamlined offerings. Reggie did, however, reiterate Nintendo’s earlier statement that Wii U will have an “extremely robust online experience.” It just won’t be Nintendo that makes that happen. “There will be other publishers talking about that as well, and from our perspective, we think it’s much more compelling for that information to come from the publishers than to come from us.” Brilliant, Nintendo. And why stop there? Next time, just let third parties create your controller, or even your entire console!
[Source: Forbes]
[Image via Tech World.]
