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Update / Nintendo not supporting online games enough?
BY Matthew Razak Sep. 20th, 2008 More on:

The title of this story seems like a pretty obvious statement to almost any gamer out there, especially those of us with Wii’s who want the system to have a more robust online feature set. However, the difference between the community bitching about the matter and a developer actually coming out and saying they’re not getting enough support is monumental. That latter happened just a few hours ago at EA’s Bloggers Day for The Sims franchise.

While Erik Zwerling, the Producer of MySims PC, was taking us through a little tour of MySims PC, the PC version of the Wii game MySims (more on it later), one of the the fellow bloggers in the room asked why the robust online features of the new PC game weren’t in place for last year’s Wii version of the game. To this Zwerling responded that while he isn’t involved with the Wii development, the reasoning as he understood it was that “Nintendo isn’t supporting the developers in that area enough, so doing that isn’t viable at the moment.”

Now, MySims on the Wii did come out almost a year ago so maybe this has changed, but when looking at the online support for the Wii Sims games we’re seeing here, it doesn’t really look like it. None of them really go online other than a few challenge modes and picture swapping features and I can’t imagine that EA doesn’t want to jump right in with more in depth online features as MySims PC shows. It’s been a good long time now since the Wii’s launch, why is Nintendo still dragging their feet on this?

Update: EA has got in touch with us about this and said that Zwerling was discussing the Wii’s online ability at the time of the original MySims release and commenting that it most likely wasn’t able to handle the online features that are present in MySims PC. So how is working with Nintendo for online functions? We’ll be talking with someone from EA soon about that, so stay tuned.

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    1. used cisco
      September 20th, 2008
      at 1:46 pm

      Weird that they would have problems getting Sims online when they have put out games with such great online features as FIFA, Madden, and Medal of Honor H2. Those titles didn’t seem to have any problems getting online and they didn’t even use friend codes. No doubt, I wish Nintendo was more into online, but I find it odd that EA would have troubles with certain titles but not others.

        Reply
      thetrvth
      September 20th, 2008
      at 4:20 pm

      (Developer): Yeah, we couldn’t be assed to put in leaderboards, online co-op, etc. It’s (Console Manufacturer)’s fault. Go forth and hate (Console Manufacturer), my children.

        Reply
      BlackEssence
      September 21st, 2008
      at 10:21 am

      Hey, Whitney (remember me?) here! I think nintendo, lately, has just been acting a little stuck up late with how they want to present things to their consumers. For some reason, they feel that with appealing to new generation of kids, if things dont go well, they can always retract back to their old school fans who have been there since the beginning. It doesnt work like that, Nintendo. You know, I recall a time where nintendo was offered a chance inhance their console and gaming style along with Sony. I think thats when the stuck up attitude came from. They turned Sony down, and for a bout 10/15yrs, Sony kicked their butts with the play station. Now, that the wii is released and is ranking as the most wanted conslole in the history of gaming, they have allowed themselves to slip in thinking they run this gaming war. They dont wanna do what everyone else is doing in fear that they may be just like other game companies. This, has in many times, been a very bad choice and attitude that nintendo has carried and they missed out on ALOT because of it. They need to get on the ball now because people are BEGGING for the classic gams from the SNES to be put on the virtual console as well as more online gaming from this consumers. As a consumer, there is only so much of “No’s” and “We are thinking about it’s” that we can take. Eventually, nintendo is going to have to invest and pick of their pieces…

        Reply
      bhive01
      September 22nd, 2008
      at 11:30 am

      Kind of obvious since Nintendo has done a horrible job supporting online anything. The weather channel is still 8 hours behind and the friend codes are just ridiculously long and obtuse.

      I know my PSN and XBL usernames and can tell them to people easily. My wii code is so long I don’t have a clue what it is nor could anyone remember all of those digits without a pen. Sure it’s laziness, but at the same time it’s preventing people from connecting.

        Reply

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