Topic: Is local multiplayer bad for business?

Local multiplayer is bad for the evil empires that want kids to have to continually upgrade their games but it works pretty well for Nintendo. "1 Mario Kart per console = huge sales of 1 game"

Not at all.
But downplaying online mutiplayer definitely is and its one of the reasons the Wii U is struggling. There's pretty much no excuse for games like 3D World, TW101, and Pikmin 3 to not have it. Not having a strong online community or emphasis on online gaming means a lot of games that have online multiplayer focused will skip the platform

gotta have both i say. and allow splitscreen and online at the same time too.

See I don't understand this mentality at all. I don't own TW101 but those other two games I thought were pushing online about as much as I expected. Now Pikmin 3 maybe could have had an online mode but I can see why they didn't given the style of game. The game isn't built to be Starcraft, if you were expecting that I think you read the labels incorrectly.

Mario on the other hand and particularly 3D World I can't see why more online would add to the game. Mario is a game about precise plat-forming and fantastic controls. The competitive/cooperative nature of 3D World is a big deal but technically I can't see it working as well online. What they did do online with it made perfect sense and pushed it much further than I was expecting. They pushed it about as far as Rayman Legends did in terms of the volume of stuff. You never heard anyone complain about Rayman Legends being "not online enough".

If we're going to complain about Nintendo not doing online well or not pushing it hard enough lets reserve it to the times when they actually do fall short. Like the fact that Starfox 64 3D didn't have any online mode at all. Or when they launch a game like Mario Kart 7 and don't have any time-trial leaderboards. Lets not whine about the fact that the "only" online feature of a single player focused game like Donkey Kong or Mario is a time-trial leaderboard, heavy MiiVerse integration and/or fairly extensive DLC.

I know this threads a few days old but i was reading a very interesting article regarding local & online play.

http://www.polygon.com/2014/3/11/5491146/why-you-dont-want-an...

I think it is good for business, a company doesn't need a server for local multiplayer so it has no costs to keep it up.

i sure wish they made vc titles playable with freinds over the internet though, don't you agree?

@skywake Pikmin 3 would have been awesome online. The Bingo vs matches are so fun but I never get to play them because I'm 28 and all my friends live miles away and rarely ever have a chance to hang out because of work. I've only been able to play Bingo matches about 3 times because of this. If they had it online, I would still probably be playing Pikmin. Heck, I would probably buy DLC Bingo matches too. Co-op challenges online would have been great, too. That was a huge opportunity missed by Nintendo.

Wonderful 101.. That's my favorite game for Wii U last year, for the most part. I can't see multiplayer for that game online other than challenges or a vs. mode. That may have been cool. I don't think it really needed it.

I agree with you on Mario 3D World. I was also really happy with DK and the time trials. There is only one game that I think Nintendo has fallen short with and I've already stated that above. We'll see what happens with their future games. I think they're starting to realize that people want online and they are embracing it. Look at Sub Wars for example. It's a huge step in the right direction for them.

Of course it's bad for bussines, because then companies can't force you to buy another game. Titanfall from as far as I know have dedicated servers for all platforms, so as soon as there will be a sequel, they can boost sales by dropping the support for the first one, leaving you with nothing, but still having your money. It's a win-win for them.

but think about it if the companies actually added new features that are worth upgrading they wouldn't need to resort to such cheap tricks.

Would online multiplayer hurt 3D World? I think not.

Did you ever consider the fact that a lot of gamers might not have the luxury of playing the game with friends at their home? If they dont then that takes away from the quality and appeal of the overall game since local multiplayer is indeed a big part of it.

And like I said, it hurts their online community. 1st party games push their hardware so if nobody is online, then wwhat maes you think a 3rd party publisher is going to step out and drop cash or put everything into an online focused game when Nintendo hasn't built any type of audience for those types of games?

I've gone on record in saying they shouldn't force online multiplayer into games but the examples I gave are missed opportunities by Nintendo and that trend has led to them have the weakest online community of the Big 3, something that's pretty big when getting consumers to buy in or keep them into their ecosystem.

Its not the end of the world, but going the extra mile can go a long way.

I don't disagree, that's probably the one game I'd say could have pushed it further and I've said that in this thread already. The problem though is that a game like Pikmin is hard to get right online and it's just one title so I don't think it's that big a deal.

Also personally, I'm in the same boat as you with Pikmin. I haven't done any of the multiplayer modes because that's really not going to happen. It's hard enough to get local-multi going as it is, it's even harder with a game like Pikmin. An online version of that would have been nice esp with random matchmaking. However personally I still got quite a lot out of that game even without it. The challenge mode DLC I still downloaded and played through by myself. So in the end I don't really feel like I missed out on that much.

It needs to do more than simply "not hurt" the game for it to be worth it. The way Mario is played the online mode could well have ended up being a dogs breakfast due to latency problems and the scale of the levels. Think the precision required for Smash Bros but with stages that are 100x as big.

Either way, come back when the examples of Nintendo dropping the ball here are more than Pikmin 3, Nintendo Land and 3D World. Only one of those was really crying out for an online mode and of the three it was the only one I didn't play with local-multi.

It could have. Mario 3D World got 9s from a lot of reviewers. If 3D World had online and it wasn't great then scores could have been lower. I feel platformers don't do well with lag and other online issues. I also think online wasn't considered in order to preserve the image of the game (a solid platformer that isn't pledged with bugs or lag). But this is all opinion based.

And then there are players themselves - I'm not saying all, but when you bring your friend to play it, you know with who you are playing with. Now go for the internet - it could've been good, but when you got something like Borderlands, CoD or Arma bad crowd, you would be more annoyed by people being selfish. At least at local, you can slap your friend on the couch or give them punishment they deserve

@skywake

I dunno about pikmin being hard to do online. At the end of the day the game isn't too removed from an RTS or a moba and we see games of those types thrive on the online component they have compared to the single player stuff. But maybes that's something for a pikmin 2.

Platformers for the most part will never have online mutliplayer due to latency needed people. That's one genre where I don't mind the local mutliplayer or bust.