America Online

[Six]

Hell, i'd rather take a rusty screwdriver into my eyeball than subscribe to AOL.

Surely Nintendo doesn't mean that playing a Gamecube online would require AOL access. That would be suicide. "Gee I have my $40 a month cable modem that my Xbox and PS2 use and now I need another $23 a month for AOL dialup so I can play MarioKart?" Riiiiiight.

"To be clear, this does not indicate the unveiling of a new online gaming approach from Nintendo. Nor does it signify that we have changed our position on the current business viability in the online console gaming field."

So all they're really doing is using the AOL connection software to get on the net instead of working up their own stuff. That doesn't mean that you would have to be an AOL member with a dial-up or broadband account to play online.

Does it?

[voltz]

I'll never subscribe, AOL IS TEH DEVIL!!

If there's anything that says you have to be on AOL rather then having the right to use your own ISP, that's a royal fuckover that nobody in their right mind would buy into.

nice going nintendo.

[Kinopio]

What does this accomplish? Is anyone even considering developing online games for the system besides Sonic Team?

[voltz]

What about that gamespy "tunneling" link they were talking about?

[Blaine]

I'm gonna try to be positive. I'll do so for about...3 or 4 sentences then I'll break down.

Well, it might not be THAT bad. America Online is a massive massive fucking company, it might be that they have a deal with AOL/Time Warner and not specifically using AOL as is. They be providing server space and bandwith but underneath a new, less suck, entity.

Fucking AOL. Why, out of all the people do they choose AOL? They're big, true, but as if the GameCube wasn't having a hard enough time fighting the patina of 'suck', they just gotta go and do this.

It's like how everyone kept saying Mike Piazza was gay. And there's back and forth about it and all of a sudden he's like "Dude, I'm not gay. Just ask my new neighbor Richard Simmons".

[Melf]

I read somewhere that AOL lost more money in a year than any company in the history of humanity.

They suck.

This means nothing, since Nintendo doesn't give a shit about online gaming. Now you may have to play PSO and Ep. III with AOL.

Whoop-de-doo.

[gamevet]

I'll be playing PSO Ep.3 on SBCyahoo. I dropped that turd AOL about 5 months ago and the DSL (SBC)is only $8 more a month.

[Astral]

I read somewhere that AOL lost more money in a year than any company in the history of humanity.

They suck.

Probably, considering that if AOl doesn't turn a profit this year they are more than likely going to close up at the end of January 2004.

I guess nintendo is hoping they do so they cane be like "oops we did have plans for GC online but there went the service provider"

[Agent X]

This isn't necessarily a bad thing. Sony also has a similar deal with America Online, so that gamers who have AOL service can play some of the PS2 online games that way. (Doesn't work with Tony Hawk 3 or 4, though.) That doesn't mean that you must use AOL to play PS2 games online, just that the option to do so is available to you. Hopefully, the GameCube agreement is along the same lines, where AOL is merely one option, and you can still use other Internet service providers.

Now, they just need to develop more online games for the system for it to have any meaningful impact.

[frostwolf ex]

Maybe im misreading this, but i dont see where they are saying aol is manditory, it just says that aol will send out kits to developers who are making games so that they will be compatable with aol,something the dc didnt have with seganet that wound up costing me a good bit of money to maintain a second isp, just for a gaming system in the past. Nowhere does it say that it will be the exclusive provider, just the "preferred",which kind of makes sense since aol has a lot of people subscribed to it, and they can freely market between each other .

If it comes out that its exclusive, then i will be annoyed, because then i cant play pso, but until then, this is much ado about nothing.