Nintendo will begin charging for certain elements of its online-enabled games in the future.

Up to now, Nintendo has boasted quite strongly about its free Wi-Fi Connection service, but the company announced at the Game Developers Conference this week that it has plans to introduce a 'Pay And Play' service for some games.



Nintendo project leader Takashi Aoyama explained that this new expansion will see the company begin "collecting fees for some services [that] will allow us to adapt flexibly." Users will be able to subscribe on a game-by-game basis, but no titles were mentioned and no pricing details were divulged.

What was confirmed though is that a red icon reading 'Pay And Play' will be present in the place of the blue Wi-Fi Connection icon on game packaging - the original icon will only be used for games that are free to play.

Source : Aussie-Nintendo.com - News

I can understand if they are companys other then Nintendo in house games, but if they charge monthly rates for games like Animal Crossing Wii, Mario Kart ,etc. Its just not on, im a big Nintendo fan, but this goes against all that crap they were talking about 'casual' online.

Every game they put a pay to play stick on better be able to have voice chat, communication via keyboard as well as some system other then the friend code system, because while lack of these features is tolerable on a free service, its not up to par if they want us to pay.

Darnit - you beat me to it. I was just about to post about this. I read about this in another forum, and my first thought was Nintendo pay to play online? Crap. Nice job of screwing up your already failing online service. I don't really play Nintendo Wi-Fi connection that much anyways, tho, so it doesn't matter that much to me. But I agree that they better be putting impressive features on any game they slap that sticker on. I also realize that this could mean that SSBB will require subscription to play online. And that would suck.

Wow.... guess Nintendo realized why teh micro charged for sh!t. But doing it EA style, pfft, gl

Its a shame...
Wii's online is tooooooo CRAPPY to charge! they would have to be better than ps3's which isnt nearly impossible and of course no where near 360. This is a foolish especially since they dont have much to offer...
Any sensible gamer wouldn't pay for it but Nintendo nut jobs will, and thats the sad part.

What game can be played online with the Wii so far?

The only games I own (Out of my 30 Odd titles) that can be played online is.
. Madden 08
. Mario Strikers
. Guitar Hero III

There are something like 20 now, the next one I will be getting is Battalion Wars 2 which is one of the strongest online games. So is Medal Of Honor Heroes 2 which features 32 player online (A First for Wii) but there are no aussie servers so it will lag hard so I wont be getting it, and its just stupid how they removed the online features from the Australian release. Have to wait for Brawl and Mario Kart to get any worthwhile online games I think, as well as Monster Hunter 3.