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As Timesplitters 2 abandons its plans for online play, due to sony’s inability to provide firm technical details about what will be happening for their network, you could be forgiven for thinking our chances of online gaming moving beyond the dreamcast and pc any time soon are up in smoke.
The attitude publicly expressed by Nintendo, ‘work out how it can be done profitably before rushing in’ – which seems to translate to ‘wait and see how everyone else does it’ – doesn’t exactly offer hope that they have things moving either.
However, for those who pick up on the right details, there are signs to suggest that things might be moving a little faster than the blank face of Nintendo would have us believe.
The evidence?
Of course, Nintendo first released pictures of their 56k and broadband gamecube modems before the console’s release. News also seeped through of a Phantasy Star Online conversion.
Take a look about a third of the way down the following page:
http://www.lan-kwei.com/gamecubeE/
What you’re looking for is the (3rd party) gamecube keyboard, bundled in with a modem and PSO trial edition.
A little further down the page you’ll see the official modems mentioned earlier. And you’ll also notice their expected date of availability – a rather vague 2002. That’s to a domestic Japanese market, of course.
Things are moving forward, and internet-specific peripherals being readied at this stage must be a sign of progress.
Exhibit B:
This September America get Animal Crossing. We get it sometime later it would seem. Details are on:
http://www.nintendo-europe.com/NOE/en/GB/games/description.
jsp?ElementId=79b8d8f7-a0ec-488c-9a7c-c3723cc3e587
(spaces)
While the GBA link and some memory card swapping offer the most noticeable linked features, notice the line: “Write letters to both your human- and GameCube-controlled buddies…”
Would those letters be written using a keyboard, perhaps? And although the game does feature multiplayer mode, would there really be any point in writing someone a letter if they were sat next to you. As opposed to being on the end of a networked connection?
Okay, it’s speculative, but it’s also available in Japan and soon to land in America. If online play were put into the game, it’d be there to be used in the very near future, not a number of years down the line.
The third piece of evidence – or rather an absence of evidence.
Mario golf, tennis and kart. What do these games have in common? After being confirmed by Nintendo as underway, nothing has been heard. PD0 and Donkey Kong Racing from rare. The former? Nothing heard. The latter? Taken back out of sight.
What do all 5 games have in common? A great multiplayer mode. Perhaps even ideally suited for online play?
The Rare titles seem to envolve rather more speculation, not least because of the company’s questionably changing relationship with Nintendo, but next to Kameo, of which news and screenshots have been gradually trickling out for a long time, and which won’t be released perhaps for over a year, it seems there must be a reason for Rare’s tight-lipped approach.
Nintendo’s games? Well, they could be saving news for a dry spell, when little else is happening, but the relative torrent of Zelda info alone suggests reasoning lies behind ninty’s silence. And the company isn’t the best for preventing leaks of info under normal circumstances.
My theory? The games are going online, and they’ll be doing it, in some parts of the world at least, next year. We’ve heard little about 2003s release schedule, but the aforementioned games could be the cornerstones. Ninty aren’t about to reveal their hand in such a vast, untested field as online play until the last possible moment, so they keep quiet.
But the clues are there.
The attitude publicly expressed by Nintendo, ‘work out how it can be done profitably before rushing in’ – which seems to translate to ‘wait and see how everyone else does it’ – doesn’t exactly offer hope that they have things moving either.
However, for those who pick up on the right details, there are signs to suggest that things might be moving a little faster than the blank face of Nintendo would have us believe.
The evidence?
Of course, Nintendo first released pictures of their 56k and broadband gamecube modems before the console’s release. News also seeped through of a Phantasy Star Online conversion.
Take a look about a third of the way down the following page:
http://www.lan-kwei.com/gamecubeE/
What you’re looking for is the (3rd party) gamecube keyboard, bundled in with a modem and PSO trial edition.
A little further down the page you’ll see the official modems mentioned earlier. And you’ll also notice their expected date of availability – a rather vague 2002. That’s to a domestic Japanese market, of course.
Things are moving forward, and internet-specific peripherals being readied at this stage must be a sign of progress.
Exhibit B:
This September America get Animal Crossing. We get it sometime later it would seem. Details are on:
http://www.nintendo-europe.com/NOE/en/GB/games/description.
jsp?ElementId=79b8d8f7-a0ec-488c-9a7c-c3723cc3e587
(spaces)
While the GBA link and some memory card swapping offer the most noticeable linked features, notice the line: “Write letters to both your human- and GameCube-controlled buddies…”
Would those letters be written using a keyboard, perhaps? And although the game does feature multiplayer mode, would there really be any point in writing someone a letter if they were sat next to you. As opposed to being on the end of a networked connection?
Okay, it’s speculative, but it’s also available in Japan and soon to land in America. If online play were put into the game, it’d be there to be used in the very near future, not a number of years down the line.
The third piece of evidence – or rather an absence of evidence.
Mario golf, tennis and kart. What do these games have in common? After being confirmed by Nintendo as underway, nothing has been heard. PD0 and Donkey Kong Racing from rare. The former? Nothing heard. The latter? Taken back out of sight.
What do all 5 games have in common? A great multiplayer mode. Perhaps even ideally suited for online play?
The Rare titles seem to envolve rather more speculation, not least because of the company’s questionably changing relationship with Nintendo, but next to Kameo, of which news and screenshots have been gradually trickling out for a long time, and which won’t be released perhaps for over a year, it seems there must be a reason for Rare’s tight-lipped approach.
Nintendo’s games? Well, they could be saving news for a dry spell, when little else is happening, but the relative torrent of Zelda info alone suggests reasoning lies behind ninty’s silence. And the company isn’t the best for preventing leaks of info under normal circumstances.
My theory? The games are going online, and they’ll be doing it, in some parts of the world at least, next year. We’ve heard little about 2003s release schedule, but the aforementioned games could be the cornerstones. Ninty aren’t about to reveal their hand in such a vast, untested field as online play until the last possible moment, so they keep quiet.
But the clues are there.
Page:
Dr Duck wrote:
> Anyone know how sega's servers worked for the dreamcast?
> Did they force you to use a dial-up with call charges? And was there a
> subscription to be paid?
Towards the end of the Dreamcasts life they realised the Dreamkey 3 ( i think it was called) that let you use any ISP. Although for most of the DCs life you had to use a ISP with call charges...
Thats what I've heard on these forums only though...
> Anyone know how sega's servers worked for the dreamcast?
> Did they force you to use a dial-up with call charges? And was there a
> subscription to be paid?
Towards the end of the Dreamcasts life they realised the Dreamkey 3 ( i think it was called) that let you use any ISP. Although for most of the DCs life you had to use a ISP with call charges...
Thats what I've heard on these forums only though...
I thought they already launched an online FF game and someone at Ninty slammed it as it wasn't very successful...
Final Fantasy Online should be out soon in Japan and over there there's a fee for installation and everything in the region of £50.00. Then's there's a monthly fee of £6.00.
Anyone know how sega's servers worked for the dreamcast?
Did they force you to use a dial-up with call charges? And was there a subscription to be paid?
And does anyone know about sony? Same questions.
Did they force you to use a dial-up with call charges? And was there a subscription to be paid?
And does anyone know about sony? Same questions.
Nintendo won't rush it though. Knowing them it'll take a good few months longer than everyone else and when it DOES come out, it'll be damn near perfect.
Well, looking at sr's news article, it looks like it'll be PS2 Online: Sooner than you think.
17th today, and the modems go out on the 27th of the same month. 10 days to go from knowing nothing to america playing online.
Still, sluggish nintendo are unlikely to push things forward too far just to keep up with their rivals, but the 2003 estimate now looks almost certain, if not sooner (if sony can launch it with 10 days notice, i imagine ninty can do the same).
It'll be very interesting to see what comes of all this. No doubt ninty will be taking note too...
17th today, and the modems go out on the 27th of the same month. 10 days to go from knowing nothing to america playing online.
Still, sluggish nintendo are unlikely to push things forward too far just to keep up with their rivals, but the 2003 estimate now looks almost certain, if not sooner (if sony can launch it with 10 days notice, i imagine ninty can do the same).
It'll be very interesting to see what comes of all this. No doubt ninty will be taking note too...
Yeah hope i can just use my AOL account!
After reading that, I feel a good future for Nintendo. Yes, it's purely a games machine but online gaming is part of that, and if things like Animal Crossing and Metroid Prime went online, it could break Sony's head start and put Nintendo streaks ahead.
All I ask is that you can choose your own ISP, unlike on the DC. Then I can just use my BT anytime connection and I'll never have pay anything to play online, unless Nintendo make a huge server network (which I expect they will) and charge a subscription, but I don't mind that as it would just be so much month. Oh and SEGA will be charging about £5 a month to play PSO online.
Dr Duck wrote:
>
> True, unfortunatey, while sega have the experience of such affairs,
> it's a much bigger task (and gamble) for other developers.
Not at all. They do it all the time for their PC games, only a console has a single specification and will therefore cause far less problems.
Also, if a multiformat develloper runs the same server for all 3 consoles, we'd be able to give those Xbox and Sony cretins a regular trashing! ;-)
>
> Good point, though i'd sooner pay a subscription with a free line than
> pay standard call charges. Though broadband would be better still...
Yep. It can't be THAT far away...
>
> True, unfortunatey, while sega have the experience of such affairs,
> it's a much bigger task (and gamble) for other developers.
Not at all. They do it all the time for their PC games, only a console has a single specification and will therefore cause far less problems.
Also, if a multiformat develloper runs the same server for all 3 consoles, we'd be able to give those Xbox and Sony cretins a regular trashing! ;-)
>
> Good point, though i'd sooner pay a subscription with a free line than
> pay standard call charges. Though broadband would be better still...
Yep. It can't be THAT far away...
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