We're off to play Mario Kart DS online, for free.
Nintendo has announced that a new subscription scheme will soon be launched on Wi, that will charge consumers for using selected online services.We presume the Wii Pay & Play system will charge us for playing online multiplayer titles and we've got a strong suspicion that it will probably launch alongside the highly anticipated Mario Kart Wii.
Takashi Aoyama, group manager for Nintendo's network administrations group confirmed the scheme at the Game Developer Conference and said that the system will be a way of ""collecting fees for some services [that] will allow us to adapt flexibly."
The charges will be levied on a game-by-game basis and costs will vary depending on the titles.
Our inital reaction to the news was one of disappointment, as we hoped, rather foolishly perhaps, that Nintendo would allow us to play online for free. However, until the company has laid their cards on the table and revealed the subscription model in full we're trying to stay optimistic that Nintendo won't rip us off.
In the meantime, we're off to play Mario Kart DS online, for free.
