Play4Fun

All or most of you probably know Ubisoft will be porting Ghost Recon Online from PC to Wii U for its' launch.

Well, this got me thinking. Since GRO is a free-to-play PC game, could it also be free on Wii U?

What if every Wii U, for the first year or so of the system's launch, comes with that game downloaded on the hard drive or on a disk?

Companies make money on F2P games with itemshops and such thing set up for the players to pay real money to get certain items you may not be able to get for free in-game, so Ubisoft would still make money off the game.

I don't know how likely this is, but it would be a great way for Nintendo to bring up the appeal of the console for the hardcore gamers.

Nintendo already have the casual market on lock. If they can get the hardcore market to flourish on the console beginning at launch, it will go a long towards making the console a huge success.

So, what do you think? Likely? Or unlikely?

This is an insightful post from a poster on another forum:

I think that the goal of the Wii was to act as an entry level platform, not necessarily a "bridge" platform. The next console, whatever it is, will, I think, be aimed to "bridge the gap" so to speak. Nintendo could achieve this by actively marketing to both the "core" gamers and the "Wii" gamers, where "'Wii' gamers" are the new gamers that have already bought into the Wii.

If they market aggressively to both camps, provide a plethora of solid games, as well as a few "casual" titles, and a few "bridge" titles, then I think Nintendo can reap the rewards of triumph over both sides.

In my honest opinion, I think Nintendo was actively keeping itself distanced from the "hardcore" camp. They had two real audiences to draw in with the Wii, it seems to me, the Nintendo loyalists, and the "new gamers." They were in a fairly safe position, I think. If they failed to draw in the "new gamers," then they could easily fall back on the loyalists and still rake in the dough. And let's be honest, Nintendo would have had to screw up REALLY badly to lose the majority of their fans.

As the Wii came to life, and the response from the "new gamers" was heard, I think Nintendo decided to divide up it's resources, targeting their new audience, as well as their core audience. I don't think they really cared about the  the "hard-core" this generation, simply because they didn't need them, and furthermore, in a bid to entice the masses, they needed to appear very accessible, something not easily done when also trying to promote your product as "the console for 'REAL' gamers."

But now, Nintendo has acquired this market, they still have most of their loyalists, and they can move on. I think the next step for Nintendo is to convert the "new gamers" into Nintendo loyalists. These are impressionable gamers, though. They know what is being offered on the other platforms, and I think Nintendo recognizes that it might be enticing to some of them. In other words, a great number of them could probably look at the PS3 and Move or the 360 and Kinect as their next step up in gaming. To counteract that, Nintendo will have to provide similar experiences to what can be found on those competing devices, as well as unique experiences that can only be found on theirs.

In doing this, I think Nintendo will win over a lot of people who aren't already predisposed to hate them (for those their is no cure, methinks). It should also mean a much stronger platform with greater game quality and diversity for Nintendo fans.

TL;DR Version

This generation for Nintendo was targeted specifically to draw in the new gamers, and   with this market sufficiently enticed, Nintendo will work on converting them to faithful Nintendo fanatics/core gamers. They will do this by equalizing the difference between themselves and the competition, and then adding some unique Nintendo flair to it.

[i]Keep in mind that this is just speculation. (Although it does sound very reasonable)

Nintendo always seems to be experimenting and testing out things not only in their research building(s) but also on the market, hence all the add-ons.

In the GC days, Nintendo, I feel, failed at online but it didn't really matter in that generation anyways.

In the Wii days, Nintendo didn't fail at online. Wii's online system was never meant to rival Sony's or MS'. It was bare bones and seemed more like experimenting to me. It is what is was mostly meant to be. It seemed to me like Nintendo was partly using Wii's online to test certain things.

I think with Cafe, we will see Nintendo take a big step towards social gaming. Cafe will be a social console and the controller screen will be a big part of that I bet.

It won't just be a PS-NetWork/XBox Live rip-off. It will be different. It will have that...*Eyes shine and he waves his right hand in a semi-circular motion in the air*...Nintendo Magic.

3DS to Cafe connectivity will also play a big part in this.

http://gamevideos.1u.../video/id/33013

Combat looks promising. Artstyle is looking alright.
Really looking forward to this game.