Nintendo very clearly favors local multiplayer over online play in their games, there's no question about that. They usually just tack on a very half-assed mediocre online service to their systems.
Online play on the GameCube worked very similarly to online play on the PS2. It was free to use, but you needed a special broadband adapter or dial-up modem that was sold separately, and there was no overarching service across the whole system as is the case with Xbox Live. Instead, each individual game publisher was responsible for maintaining a game's online servers. This was basically the exact same way PS2 online was implemented, with the exception of that system's optional hard drive support.
Ultimately, there were only 3 online games released for the GameCube: Sega's Phantasy Star Online: Episode I & II, PSO: Episode I & II Plus, and PSO: Episode III Card Revolution games, which also required an additional $8.95/month subscription fee. DLC was also never used on this system. Not even Nintendo themselves bothered to make an online game for the GameCube, which tells you a lot. They did make Mario Kart: Double Dash, Kirby Air Ride, and 1080 Avalanche compatible with LAN play, but that doesn't really count.
Now, the Wii's online play was a lot more widely used, but nevertheless it blew hard. You had this 16-digit friend code assigned to your console, and that was essentially what you had to use to become friends or send messages with other players. You couldn't use your Mii or create a gamertag, and you couldn't have multiple online profiles on one system. Gameplay wise, the only titles that performed well were Mario Kart and GoldenEye 007, the rest of them were glitchy and laggy, most infamously Super Smash Bros. Brawl. DLC existed, but it was very rare, and the only Wii DLC I can think of at the moment was additional Just Dance songs.
Online play on the Wii U was just a shitty clone of Xbox Live and PSN, with the friend code system being dropped in favor of the standard ID system and DLC being more widely used. Although it was free to use, the performance was still glitchy and laggy, and online play and DLC for multi-platform games were often skipped over on the Wii U version.
Nintendo Switch Online is essentially Wii U online, but it costs $20/year, and you get free NES and SNES games trickled out very slowly.
As you can see based on all of that, it's very clear that Nintendo seems to truly despise online play. They seem to think that local multiplayer is all you need, which in the year 2020 is very much not true anymore. What evil do they see in just making a decent online play service?
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* This article was originally published here
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