Secondhand Buyers Not Getting the Wii Speak Channel
By Chris on Wednesday, November 12th, 2008 at 6:32 PM PST In Game Companies, Game Consoles, Game Platforms, Gamer Life, Hardware, Nintendo, Nintendo
Lately, it seems like the hottest trend in gaming (outside of zombies and fire) has been incentivizing the purchase of new games instead of used ones. Gears of War 2 is a prime example, with each new copy of the game coming with a code to download five free multiplayer maps from the original Gears. Epic Games president Mike Capps recently talked about the practice and offered up a pretty radical type of solution he had heard about previously — something along the lines of forcing those who buy a used copy to pay money in order to fight the game’s final boss.
Nintendo seems to be taking that idea even further with the Wii Speak peripheral — if you don’t buy one new, you won’t get access to the Wii Speak channel. MTV Multiplayer reports that when you buy a new Wii Speak, it comes with a card containing a 16-character code that can be redeemed for the Wii Speak channel, which allows you to chat with others without playing a game. The code comes with a note saying that it can’t be replaced by Nintendo should it be lost or stolen.
Nintendo also confirmed to Multiplayer that you won’t be able to buy the chat channel from the Wii Shopping channel as you might expect. You simply buy a new Wii Speak and get the channel or else you don’t get it. It seems like a pretty bizarre way of encouraging people to buy a new Wii Speak, if you ask us. Hopefully this detail will be made clear enough to the average consumer, just in case some uninformed shopper wanders into GameStop to buy a Wii Speak as a gift and then decides to save a few dollars by picking up a used one.
yea. fuck Nintendo. that’s why there kicking MS’s and Sony’s ass in the console competition. and this is coming from a wii60 owner.
I think the reason behind this is because of the peripheral that they use. If that is it in the picture, then I would think that a regular usb headset would work with the channel. Hence… they force you to buy the mic to use the channel.
Nintendo seriously MR I own NPDS, worrying about sales? from pitty guys buying second games?
Seriously Nintendo?
Are you guys secretly buying/building a new universe or something? what do you do with all that money? and why in the heck do you want more? We know you already have Japan’s title of property in the safe.
Gah, what the flying fuck are these bastards thinking! They are killing the industry with this shit.
Making people pay for the last boss on used copies? Given I’ve not completed a game in years, that works fine for me.
Seriously though, the fucking endless greed of this industry is disgusting.