If the Wii U has Steam, this is definitely a Day 1 purchase for me!

If it's steam, I'll have a nerdgasm. if it's origin, I'll never hook my U to the nets.

Please go with Steam. Please go with Steam. Please go with Steam. The sooner EA shrivels up and dies the better

If the system works as I think it does, then Steamworks will likely be the most used Digital service amongst 3rd parties.
EA trying to trojan horse themselves into the Nintendo Online camp as the sole provider is just trying to make sure that all those 3rd titles that come to PC are also Origin enabled since they will need to be to be on the Wii U.

Hopefully Nintendo knows better than to allow EA that kind of power over their digital distribution and 3rd party relations.

Well, fuck.

Honestly makes no difference to me at this point. I've never bought a system based on its online capabilities. If it's too invasive I may not buy it, actually.

In the end I'd rather they did it themselves. The fewer hands and eyes on my junk the better.

Just as long as it's free.

I'm a supporter of Origin. The service is still young and will go through many changes. I highly doubt that the main online service will be Origin, but if origin becomes used then we can see a lot of high end titles from EA. I think its a good thing.

I actually hope that Nintendo creates a one size fits all online system that can accomodate every online option. I really hope that Nintendo allows Steam onto their next because I would really love to see the eShop and Virtual Console modelled after Valve's online system.

I've heard mixed things about Origin after its Prime Time appearance in Battlefield 3 on PC.  I've seen praises for the interface once you set it up, and I've seen complaints about having to go through all that web-required nonsense just to play a simple game.  If I remember correctly, the Origin servers had issues as well.  Overall, it sounds like a headache I don't want to deal with on consoles.  Let the PC users have to suffer with that crap.

If Nintendo is truly incapable of designing a competent online system on-par with PSN and XBL, I'd rather they went with Valve and used Steam as a launching pad.  I'm not a huge fan of Steam (simply because I don't play many PC games and have rarely had reason to use the service), but Valve has proved over the years that they know what they're doing when it comes to online gaming better than any other 3rd party developer.

When did Patchkid15 get a job??

Also, I predicted this in the chat during the live E3 conference.

As long as it's free and works as well as all my previous consoles.

Oh, nice of you not to mention the privacy concerns and spyware allegations.


The Origin client is okay. It works and has a (EA) friends list and overlay browser. As for Origin server troubles, I didn't have any trouble patching Battlefield 3 during the pre-load period. Perhaps problems occurred that I wasn't aware of. As for the mandatory web-browser Battlelog interface for Battlefield 3 on PC, it is odd to go back to such things when picking a server from the in-game browser has been happening for the past couple of years. However, picking a server is much easier and better than in Battlefield: Bad Company 2's in-game server browser. It would've been best if both the web browser and the in-game browser were available. Then again, DICE is not known to make good interfaces. Or launching games with a comfortable amount of bugs and problems.


As for suffering through crap, said crap are the sorts of things that is attached to all online gaming.


While I'm fine with Orign so far (though plenty of other people aren't), I hope that Nintendo doesn't turn to EA exclusively to providing Wii U's online offerings. At the risk of confusion, I would like for Steam, Origin, and other online game services to be available on Wii U. This is assuming Nintendo can't or doesn't care to make a competitive online service.

Fuck no. I would rather skip another generation than have Origin or any EA driven service on a Nintendo machine. Please tell EA to fuck off because nothing good will come of it. Trading civil rights for games is an absurd non-choice to make.

I don't use Origin, and I don't care enough to remember every little controversy the incredibly anal PC gaming community has with these things.  Honestly, I had completely forgotten about the Germany spyware allegations until you brought them up.

Which is why I don't bother with online gaming for the most part.  All that hassle, and rarely is it ever worth it IMO.  Single-player storytelling all the way, baby!  :cool;

My main interest in this is the next-generation Nintendo shop, which would presumably also be handled by Origin.

Regardless of everything that everyone has been talking about the Wii U, about the games, online stuff, downloadable content, content in particular, or WHATEVER,..I just have this to say. And bear with me. For every person who has a Wii, they are bound to have like a PS3 or Xbox 360 right? Well, ever since I bought a PS3, I kinda wish I had bought a 360 instead. It's just, so much dissapointment since I bought the thing. Barely got any games for it, don't know what games to buy because of my near nothing budget, and just FPSs and RPGs are being released nowadays. The biggest reason I even got it was because I grew up with playstations just as much as Nintendo consoles. I mean, what a horrible difference between PS1/2 games and PS3 games! Now my point. I am putting my hopes in that the Wii U will make up for my mistake, this way I'll know what games are good and bad because, well, it's Nintendo. If there's a better way to know what games are good or not, whether it's on PS3 or Wii or 360 or whatever console, I don't know what that is. I just don't. I just know playing them answers that for me. And I can't even afford to rent them like on GameFly. (and demos take over 5 hours to load so forget all that)


But anyways, here's to the future of the Wii U. Let's hope its done even better than the Wii, like it should be. Thanks alot for reading! =]

What if its free, but it costs you your soul as part of the terms of the EULA?

well i bought BF3 on PC and origin isn't as terrible as people make it out to be. Sure its not perfect but remember when everyone used to hate steam? (well i guess you wouldn't if you never played valve games around that time)


also pretty sure this wont be true.

I can't wrap my head around what an EA-driven Nintendo online would work... it's absolute suicide if third party games HAVE to use Origin. All of EA's rivals and many indie games will probably be driven AWAY from the Wii U if so, COMPLETELY defeating the goals of Nintendo with the Wii U with regards to third-parties again.

I have no problem with Origin, or Steam, being a large part of the Wii U online system, but they can't be mandatory communities. The entire point of Nintendo throwing up their hands at trying to define an online system was to get AWAY from a "one-size-fits-all" strategy, and go agnostic, more like PC/Android than Apple/iOS

Its a law of gaming that a Nintendo console always will have at least one thing about it which drives 3rd party support away. Its like there's moore's law and the law of gravity and all that, well there's also the Law of Nintendo and 3rd parties. Every generation there's always something, and it looks like with the Wii U this something is going to be EA's Origin system.

Steam was terrible when it was initially released, but Steam didn't violate your civil rights from day one and hasn't nor made a move to do so, now or in the future. You can give them hardware and installed software information, but it is completely voluntary and is anonymous.

Privacy is a valuable right and for those people who say they have nothing to hide, just wait until they chip away to the point where you do have something to hide. If it's not ok for the government to violate privacy, why would it be ok for unaccountable corporations to do so. That's why you must push back loudly and often. Privacy is a sword and shield protecting you from persecution, exploitation and discrimination regardless of source.

The Germans rightly protested as they have first hand seen what happens when privacy breaks down and lists start being formed. History has time and again shown bad things happen when rights are violated.

If you're done comparing EA to Hitler, I'll say that I doubt they'll doing that anymore, given the lawsuits and bad PR and all that that are really bad for business. You may be willing to boycott something forever over one mistake, but I don't really think that's rational if they've addressed it and have moved on.

Put me in the camp of wanting a good service that's free and not caring who developed it.

I wouldn't go there. Rights may be being violated, but I seriously doubt EA is planning mass murder.

But as a consumer, don't you want a service which every developer wants to support? Even if Origin is perfectly fine on the end user end, if its something developers don't want to support then it becomes our problem because we are going to miss out. It can be "good" and free to use, but if its something no one other than EA and its puppets want to support then its going to suck.

Having seen EA's presentations regarding Origin, I absolutely believe that they're pushing for this, and I do hope it is an option as I'd like to see cross-platform multiplayer games. I don't know if Nintendo would go for it as the sole online platform, however.

Personally, I tend to tune people out and think them fools the moment they start comparing something or someone to Nazis.  It's the laziest form of insult you can think up, and 9/10 it's hyperbole in the extreme.

I didn't go there, you went there. It just happens to be the Germans who protested so openly who have such history. Had it been another nation, I am sure I they would have their own cultural and historical reasons to do so. The Germans may have been protesting because of other historical events, for example the Stasi. Just because it's Germany, it doesn't mean it has to be that event. They have had a century of suffering to pick from.

Assuming EA has withdrawn in it's activities, it still comes down to how trustworthy they are. Time and time again they have proven untrustworthy and incompetent, making them the worse choice, well below Nintendo making their own service which hasn't shown the greatest usability or competence, has been harmless. Why would any forward thinking company think that spying on their users would be a good idea let alone implement it. It wasn't one mistake, it was a chain of mistakes they could have broken that lead to that public mistake.

Couldn't

Steam, Origins, PlayOnline, and Virtual Console all be different channels? I like the channels system. Its basically just like a pc, having separate programs for each thing. Nintendo had better include a hard drive, because that pretty much makes bunches of upgrades and features possible. The last hard drive I bought was a 1TB external hard driver for $100 3 years ago. Im guessing by august 2012 1TB will be down a bunch. I think I remember hearing there would be USB hardware support.

I noticed on Amazon hard drive prices have skyrocketed. About a year ago I ordered a 500gb HDD for my friend's PS3 for about $50 or so, but I looked recently and the very exact same one is now $129.99. And its not just that one either. It seems like all the 500gb+ drives are $100 or more. I don't know what happened, but in the course of a year the prices have more or less doubled.

Is it because demand in HDDs are high? or is it something else?

Floods in Thailand shut down the factories.

It the Flooding in Thailand. A lot of the Harddrives are made there. With a 1/3 of the country flooded including most of the capital, there has been a massive drop in supply. Prices go up accordingly.

Ahhh, okay... I had no idea. I guess the prices will come down once that gets sorted out then. Its probably that damn global warming. They said there was going to be more flooding as ocean levels rise.

well damn

This is how I imagine Nintendo is setting up their Online Network.

You log in to an account attached to your My Nintendo that has a username and password.
Once logged in you will have access to the eShop, your friends list, chat, etc etc.

Everything will seem very unified behind Nintendo from the Users point of view.
You go into the shop, you see games listed, you can buy them, download them, play them.
You can insert a disc into the drive and choose the option to go online.

This is where the portal comes into play.

You chose to play BF3 so it routes you through Origin servers which handle all the cross talk, chat and online play.
If you chose Killer Freaks, it routes you through UbiPlay
....Valve's Black Box routes you through Steamworks
etc etc.

From the users standpoint, you won't really be able to tell the difference other than the logo that will pop up before you start playing.

You decide to download a game or some DLC
depending on who made the game, it will route you through which ever portal is hosting that particular game or DLC and you download it through there. Eitherway, you wouldn't even notice you are no longer on Nintendo's server except for a logo that would probably pop up while you are waiting for the download to start (think like a startup logo before a game).

This is why I think alot of software is gonna be running through the Steam portal (assuming it works anywhere near how I imagine) as I assume it will be multi-plat and will likely use the PC build as a port which will already be Steam enabled for the majority of games.

That would make for a very agreeable compromise. It would take the best of what each service could offer and let them have at each other under a unified interface. The only problem I might see is the insane amount of cross licensing legal wankery that would happen especially if two or more providers offer the same game. In the worse case, a game wouldn't be released or is somehow crippled. The potential risks are high, but the rewards for both the companies and consumer equally great.

Well, the publisher would decide which portal it would go through.


So if Activision had a game, they would probably run it through Steamworks
If Capcom had a game, they would probably run it through Origin
Nintendo would obviously run their own games through their own servers
Konami might also choose Origin, but iD might choose Steamworks

EA's play right now is to ensure that all these Publishers would run it through their portal (and only their portal since it would be the only option) and therefore have no excuse to not also release the game on the PC through Origin. There is no way that Nintendo is gonna allow EA that kind of power on Big N hardware. It would also really alienate Activision and Valve software.

EA is already setting up deals to have non-EA games on Origin. There are adverts for the PC versions of Saint's Row The Third and Super Street Fighter IV: Arcade Edition on store.origin.com.

If in the undesirable scenario that Nintendo has EA's Orign as the exclusive online service front for the Wii U, seeing games from publishers other than Nintendo and EA isn't out of the question.

The downside of so many servers is the more there are the more likely it will be that at least some of them are going to get shut down or merged or whatever somewhere down the road. So what's going to happen to games designed to run on one system when that system gets pulled? Will the games get patched to work with the next system? With one centralized monolithic system its less likely its going to fold, although if it does it would be far more devastating because then everything gets cut off, but its less likely to happen then a bunch of small time things competing with one another.

I worry about the licensing wankery because it already happens. There are a number of games on Steam that have a Mac and PC version, however because licensing, they are not Steamplay. The developer then sells the now years old port at full price, effectively killing sales for that game on the Mac because they keep thinking they would get more money selling it themselves than to get a one off payment from the publisher for porting the game.

Now imagine the same thing happening on the WiiU with all these portals openly belligerent to each other. If a game can appear on two or more services, the question becomes, will you get a choice? If Origin effectively locks up the market because they brown nosed Nintendo early, it becomes no choice at all.

The solution to this is for Nintendo to put their foot down and stipulate that everyone plays nice in writing, so there won't be an open war in the court rooms. Everybody will be competing on price and features, things that are important to the gamer rather than who has the fanciest legal letterhead.. The question becomes whether Nintendo has the foresight or the will to do so.

EA shoots itself in the Origin foot yet a again before putting said bleeding foot in mouth.

I have no intention of joining EA's Origin forums, so its not likely I'm going to end up banned from using Origin. Then again, I have no real desire to use Origin either... but that's something that could happen if Origin ends up being the Wii U online experience. Imagine EA having the power to ban people from playing online games on Nintendo hardware. That wouldn't be right.

I'm surprised that first link didn't show up in here days ago. I was gonna link to it, but I didn't feel like looking it up again.

But I'm sure EA will not be in charge of Nintendo's Online Service.

Shouldn't be using official forums anyway. They're usually horrible. That goes with regular forums too! Ah, now I'm just being anti-social.

Electronic Arts does really stupid things. As a satisfied consumer of some of their games, it's frustrating that they don't fix what seem to be simple issues.