"With the popularity of cellular phones, we are on the verge of once again redefining interactive video game entertainment by connecting a Game Boy to a cellular phone."
- Hiroshi Yamauchi
Nintendo Co. Ltd. 2002 Annual Report
On January 5, 2001, Nintendo announced it would team up with KDDI - the second largest telecom company in Japan - to embark on a game networking system through mobile phones. The partnership would officially come into function on February 2, 2001, when Nintendo would begin selling its approximately $50 "Mobile Adapter GB" via 2,800 KDDI cellular telephone sales shops throughout Japan.
The "Mobile Adapter GB" gives communication capabilities and Internet access to the Game Boy Color and Game Boy Advance, by connecting them to mobile phones. This connection allows the Game Boys to access Nintendo's servers via a wireless Internet connection. Nintendo hoped that the sales arrangement with KDDI would result in a quick diffusion of the new system to Japanese consumers. Meanwhile, KDDI saw the arrangement as an opportunity to strengthen its sales to youth. For its part, KDDI would market the Game Boy system and a cellular telephone as a set to elementary school and middle school students.
Through KDDI's dial-up network service, Game Boy users are able to "email each other, upgrade game software and fight with friends and strangers," says Nintendo. KDDI and Nintendo would jointly develop additional Mobile Adapter GB-based services, for which Nintendo prepared a modified version of HTML. The access to the Internet however, is limited to Nintendo-provided content for children. Pokmon Crystal headlined the hardware's release. The Mobile Adapter software allowed players to trade Pokemon characters over their phones.
"In terms of hardware, a Game Boy connected to a mobile phone can browse around the Internet," said Satoshi Yamato, general manager of Nintendo's special-planning and development department. "But Game Boy is for kids, so the access will be limited to Nintendo-provided home pages." Nintendo said it would ship 24 million units of the new game machine in its first year of availability.
This partnership between KDDI and Nintendo began a fierce tug-of-war between the high-profile game makers in Japan. Shortly afterwards, Sony Computer Entertainment announced it would ally with telecom giant NTT DoCoMo to jointly develop a new mobile communication network system, combining its PlayStation technology and DoCoMo's i-mode service. The network system was expected to provide mobile phones with PlayStation game titles through DoCoMo's new Java-enabled i-mode service, called i-appli.
A question that arises with Nokia's N-Gage entrance into handheld gaming, would the Game Boy Advance benefit by having extra features including online? Looking at the N-Gage's dismal launch, some may quickly conclude no. However, just as console networking has yet to be implemented correctly, perhaps it is the same with portable game machines. In the future, we may again see Nintendo partnered with a cell phone company to implement such technology into the Game Boy.
Criticisms of Nintendo's Past
When looking at its past, the obvious response is that Nintendo simply did not put in enough effort or in the case of the GB Mobile Network, Nintendo was targeting the wrong audience. The true obstacle to these online woes revolves not around Nintendo's ineptness but rather around the market's acceptance, or more appropriately put, unacceptance.
When one looks at Sega's position in 2000, online gaming doesn't look so rosy. Pardon the pun, but Sega put everything on the line when it decided to bundle its Dreamcast with a 56K modem and focus the company's future within the online gaming realm. It had the right idea whereby users could go through their existing Internet providers.
However, the idea that online gaming could save the Dreamcast or alone, make a name for the console, was an undeniable mistake. There were of course other factors that determined the Dreamcast's unfortunate demise a year and a half later, but the fact remains the console's online emphasis contributed to that demise. If the market isn't ready, it simply isn't ready. You can push and pull all you want, but likely all you'll end up doing is draining your wallet. Electronic Arts' The Sims Online gamble and failure is another example of a company not preparing the right online model.
"Here in Japan, Final Fantasy is a dependable franchise that sells quite well. Previous installments of the series sold more than 2.5 million units each, but with its most recent online version, Square's sales have dropped drastically."
- Hiroshi Yamauchi
former president of Nintendo Co., Ltd.
If Square can't sell Final Fantasy online in Japan, where each title is usually a huge financial success, Nintendo may be wondering how well its own franchises would fare.
"I don't think its reasonable to make someone pay for a game and then make them prepare a network connection and charge a monthly fee. In the near future we are hoping to announce something that addresses this issue."
- Satoru Iwata
president of Nintendo @ 2003 E3
Out of all the hardware companies this generation, Nintendo may have the most realistic model for creating an online service that is accessible to the mainstream. Such a service would not require users to cough up regular fees for games. The online play we've become familiar with requires a credit card, which is unarguably an obstacle for mainstream gamers.
"I think that we would agree completely with a couple of key words that both Sony's Kaz Hirai and Microsoft's Robbie Bach have used (in describing online) and one of those was 'concepts', and the other one was 'future' - and we would not have spent the time in installing capability for that (in GameCube) if we didn't likewise believe the medium is seductive. Wouldn't it be great if we can find a way to do this? We are being very honest in saying that we have worked at it and are still working at it. We don't know what that idea is. Not only one that provides the compelling enhancement to the game play experience. That is what is critical. It is a better way to spend my leisure time and my spare dough. If it doesn't do that, then it is just another neat idea that goes in that same ash can of all those other dot com things that we have watched over the last two years. Great technology, lovely idea, no consumer.So we are looking at that and we are anxious to find that answer but the other part of it is we talk about this market and the demos and the niches, and all that stuff. What you have to remember is that still over half the business is below the age of eighteen, people generally not in control to a large degree of their own discretionary disposable dough. They don't have credit cards, they don't have that ability, and those folks, have got to convince another gatekeeper to say this is a good idea; so we are all in the same place. But boy, we have a set of content that is custom made for this kind of delivery. We have game experiences that can be embraced by many. The key however, is going to be whoever can find that wonderful idea, and gets it out there; we are all going to applaud them and then go out and do it one better. But we are hard at work at it and only time will tell."
- Peter Main
2001 E3 Keynote speech
Shigeru Miyamoto is one of Nintendo's masterminds who is likely tossing around ideas and will one day reveal his secret project. Nintendo has assured us time and again that it will bring the online realm into its software when it finds that compelling game idea that makes sense to gamers and secondly makes "serious sense" to its shareholders.
Is online feasible to its shareholders? That's a question that requires an answer. The challenge for Nintendo and the other console makers is to create an online model that is free or has an "invisible" fee for the consumer, while also creating revenue for the game publisher (perhaps via advertising - commercials, pop-ups, or in game product placement and billboards).
There's the requisite saying that says "there's no such thing as free". As such, there's no such thing as free online gaming. You have to ask who's making a profit there? You're going to have the Internet providers making money, maybe the people who make the hardware, but not the people who make the games. This is a view that is shared by Miyamoto.
"While it's something we're dealing with, online play requires us to take time out to set up a main server and online service, along with requisite maintenance associated therein. Right now for every new game we complete, we must translate it into six different languages. This alone requires a lot of work and then there are always new titles to begin. Adding network gaming to the equation means a disproportionate amount of labor to maintain something used by only five percent of our audience...when you stop and consider these factors, I do feel somewhat hesitant about online gaming."
- Shigeru Miyamoto
software director & producer, Nintendo Co., Ltd.
Miyamoto nevertheless admits that online games have an "undeniable appeal". He believes, as others do, that online can add a new dimension to a game when you can chat with someone and then go play together.
The online community has been asking for an online Mario Kart more than any other game this generation. To many fan's disappointment, upon its release, Mario Kart: Double Dash!! featured only LAN network capabilities. Although, this did make it one step closer to being a full fledged online game.
"Online, I think, is something that a lot of people have recently been talking about. And I think when the situation is ready for us to jump into it, we will be able to do it. Mario Kart is a game that would be suited for that. It's similar to linking four Game Boy Advances together and playing on a split screen. It's a very similar style of play and something that you could very easily take to online. When online becomes a viable business model, something like that would be very easy to do."
- Shigeru Miyamoto
software director & producer, Nintendo Co., Ltd.
Iwata too sees the allure of online to forming new and creative games, but is also clearly aware of the remaining obstacles.
"One of the problems with the Internet world right now is that it costs money to connect, but afterwards, everything is free. As we all know that's why the Internet has spread as fast and quickly and has grown as fast as it has. And there are certain niche markets within the Internet where people are paying and making money. People pay for subscriptions or sites that help you find jobs.So one thing about the entertainment industry, it's not something that people need to survive. It's very difficult to create something that targets a wide audience and gets them to pay you every month. While it's easy to make money on the Internet by charging for a very short period of time, the biggest challenge is to create a sustainable system where you can have this set up, and operating over a long period of time it continues to be profitable. So to devise a system like that is the real challenge for us. That's been a big problem for many of the dotcom companies. They spent all of their money at the beginning thinking they have to go online and they spent all of their money on marketing and made a little money over time -- but it just wasn't sustainable. We have to be prepared for this network aspect.
Right now, Jim (Merrick) and myself are working to figure out the best system that targets everyone from kids to adults in a way that gives them something while being sustainable over a long time. We're looking to do this in both the US and Japan."
- Satoru Iwata
president, Nintendo Co., Ltd.