New Super Mario Bros. Wii Attempts To Bridge Casual/Hardcore Divide
When Nintendo returns to its roots next month by releasing a new, 2-D, side-scrolling Super Mario Bros. game for the Wii, it’s trying to do more than simply hop on the retro bandwagon many publishers have ridden in recent months. Speaking at a roundtable discussion in New York this week, Nintendo game designer Shigeru Miyamoto talked about how they’re trying to satisfy fans of the series who want challenging gameplay in addition to attracting new or casual players just looking for an entertaining platformer. Quoting:
“… you can play the story mode single-player all the way through from beginning to end, and at any point along the way, you can add players from the world map and have up to four players cooperate to complete the levels. And beyond that, there are two dedicated multiplayer modes, one of which is free-for-all, which lets you select the stages from story mode … so you can easily find the stage you like. And then there’s also a coin battle mode which is a competitive multiplayer mode, in which you’re actually competing for points and you’re getting ranked based on how many points you’ve collected. The free-for-all mode has kind of a similar feel to something like Mario Kart where you just happen to have four people over and you want to sit down and play a quick match in your favorite level.”
Play NINTENDO Games Online
Nintendo has announced plans to rake in even more cash out of the Wii. It will begin charging gamers to play some video games online over the console’s Wi-Fi link.
Dubbed Wi-Fi Connection Pay and Play, the service will see virtual red stickers added to certain titles to highlight to users that they must pay to play them online.
Although a formal pricing strategy hasn’t been detailed yet, Nintendo did say that gamers will pay for titles using Wii Points, the console’s virtual currency.
Gamers can already play lots of titles online for free and some content is expect to remain free of charge, but probably not the best stuff.
Nintendo’s not alone in charging users to access online content. Xbox 360 owners can already access games and other material through the console’s Xbox Live service, but gamers are offered a staggered pricing strategy. For example, the gold-level membership, which claims to offer exclusive content, costs £40 (€60/$80) per year, while access to the silver level is free.
Hello world!
Welcome to WordPress. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!