Damn. Maybe they'll figure it out when they come out with the Wii You.

On one hand I want to say that Nintendo is totally new to DLC and that this is something they need to experience first hand to see how bad it is... but on the other, it's just plain stupid and they really need to look at what the competitors have done to circumvent this.

It's interesting reading these comments and seeing half of the people, especially those early to comment, blast and lambast Nintendo for poorly implementing their DLC. Then the other half is basically saying, "Wait, how's this any different than the way other companies handle DLC? And frankly, how could this be handled any better than it is currently?"

With the patch to allow all players to race alongside DLC characters and karts, this seems to be implemented as streamlined and as efficiently as possible. I don't really know what more people want from Nintendo. I'm no Nintendo apologist, but other than keeping the specific release dates close-to-the-vest for a season pass that people have already paid for, they seem to be right on the money with their first forays into major downloadable content. Mario Golf: World Tour was handled fairly well and this seems to be not missing a beat either. Not to mention shockingly fair pricing. Beyond fair, really.

Add me to the choir of "what's the big deal?" This is 100% normal. Sure, having some sort of trial period for non-purchasers is the nice thing to do, but it's certainly not the norm. If anything, this is a sign of Nintendo catching up to the current status quo.

You need to own the DLC to experience the DLC.

Patrick Klepek

No kidding...

(Even this isn't accurate as we've now seen from VentureBeat's article; people without the DLC will be able to see characters and karts, just not race on tracks. What a non-story.)

It's $12. People should really buy it.

@patrickklepek consider at least adding an update to this story. It appears that:
1) there's no restriction on using new characters / karts (assuming everyone is patched to the latest version)

2) there will be a way to force matchmaking to include the DLC that you own

That's pretty much the ideal solution. It would make absolutely no sense to let non-DLC owners play online on DLC tracks...the tracks are like 90% of the value of the DLC in the first place. Criticizing that aspect would just smack of entitlement.

What do you mean? I mean how is this any different then what any other studio does? If you don't buy a Call of Duty map pack, you can't play on those maps. If you don't buy Mario Kart 8 DLC, you don't play on the new maps or drive the new cars. I don't even understand what this story is trying to get at? I'm not one to defend Nintendo and their absolutely shitty job at handling online things, but in this case, this seems completely normal.

I'm sorry Patrick but I think this article either needs to come down or be amended. It's like there's some weird "Nintendo Doesn't Understand The Internet" agenda here that is making assumptions that aren't true. They are handling this DLC as well as a company possibly could.

In fact, if say it been handled BETTER than most companies, the price is fantastic (season pass is 12 bucks for 16 tracks in total which is basically half a new game since in mario kart the tracks ARE the game) and they are actively working on the content post release, it's not hidden on the disc.

The only way this article makes sense is if you believe that people who don't buy the tracks should be able to play them, which is pretty nuts.

Isnt this like Street Fighter 4? SSF4AE cant fight against USF4 players but you can fight others with costumes you dont own.

This seems in no way different to how DLC packs are handled by other games. It's pretty rare for racing games to add pay-for track packs to their games (this might even be the first time has happened, I don't know), usually the paid-for DLC is just cars. So I suppose this is a bit weird because it's an anomaly for its genre, but how else are they supposed to handle this? What were you expecting?

They're giving you the option to be matched with DLC-owners, so I don't really see what the problem is here. Yeah, it'd be great if people who didn't own the DLC could play those tracks with the people who do own it, but then you're basically asking Nintendo to just give away their paid DLC, which they are selling it for a very, very reasonable price. $8 for 8 tracks, 4 new cars, and 3 characters? Or $12 for both packs, bringing that number to 16, 8, and 6 respectively? That is extremely good value.

I'd even say giving players the option to be matched up with DLC-owners is better than how games like shooters handle their DLC. Usually with those types of games, you just get a DLC playlist, or God forbid an individual playlist for each pack of DLC, where you just get those maps. This leads to the "regular" playlists rarely popping up the DLC maps in the rotation since you're playing with a mix of players who do and don't own it. Letting you just say "I own the DLC, I want to race with other people who own the DLC" should lead to DLC-owners seeing those new tracks pop up in the rotation at the frequency you would expect.

Nintendo gets a lot wrong with their online endeavors, but this is exactly how this should be handled, and should even be looked to as a model for developers of games that offer track or map-based DLC going forward.

I've played numerous online games where you can actually see the downloaded costumes of other characters even if you don't have that costume. And with something like say Killer Instinct, you can still play online against people that own the characters you don't own (correct me if I'm wrong). From what the tweet in Patrick's OP says, it sounds like, for example, everyone would have to have the November DLC pack for someone to play as Link. Even though say 9 players purchased Link, no one can use him because the other one person doesn't have him. It's not like that one person can actually play as Link, he's just preventing the others from using their purchased content. That's the impression I'm getting from this.

I also think that Borderlands kind of does what I think this should do - obviously you won't be allowed to play on the new maps, but things like new characters and items and such could be handled via a compatibility pack (even if Borderlands got seriously out of hand with their compatibility packs). That way you can see the new content without having access to them and thus not limiting your game (with the exception of maps because that's obvious).

What a bunch of the comments here are trying to get across is that you shouldn't base your information on that tweet, GameXplain apparently was misinformed. According to VentureBeat you *can* see new characters / karts even if you don't own the DLC, only the new tracks themselves are restricted.

This article really needs to be updated. It was not a huge scoop and was based solely on a single tweet (!) - I don't understand why it was so hastily posted and then not updated. All it has done is sewn more confusion and misinformation on a DLC policy that appears, to me, to follow logic and industry standards.

This doesn't seem that strange at all, other games have handled it in a similar manner. From what I've heard it'll basically consist of two playlist, one with the original on-disc tracks and another with every track including DLC and on-disc tracks. Yes I'm sure there are other maybe alternative ways to handle it but this doesn't seem to bad to me.

Plus those that will still be playing online will most likely be getting the downloadable content anyway. A lot of folks I know will be.

Dammit Nintendo, why won't you let me play your DLC for free? Way to drop the ball by making people pay for your new paid add-on content. Ridiculous.

I'm going to echo the whole "this is a complete non-story" sentiment... Even before the venturebeat clarification it was still a completely unremarkable story.

Giantbomb: Maybe there's something wrong with Nintendo?

Lots of Duders: YEAH WHAT THE HELL NINTENDO YOU SO BACKWARDS!

Rational Duders: Actually guys it's not that bad...

Rinse and repeat for every article about Nintendo for the foreseeable future.

wouldn't it be more of a story if nintendo actually did something right regarding anything online?

This is how expansion packs worked when they were still a thing. I have no problem with that for something with a huge, built-in playerbase like Mario Kart. It'd irk me to no end if it happened to something niche like Evolve where the community will be small just because of the nature of the game, or when it happens in games with very short lifespans like Space Marine where you really don't want to divide an already small and dying userbase.

well I guess we will be seeing a lot of this type of article as every online game with dlc works the same! *throws hat on the ground*

seriously though what the fuck giant bomb what the fuck.

It is 2014 and Nintendo is a billion dollar tech company. They should really know how to handle it.

@chaser324: Great job. You should be the journalist.

@rave said:

First post is indicative of how the rest of the thread has gone so far. Good job, guys.

So.. actually there is nothing going on? This article seems weird.

total non-issue here, move along. oh and for the record, anyone who owns and plays MK8 and is not going to pay $12 to get 16 new tracks, 6 new characters, and 8 new vehicle sets is an idiot

You want to play on new maps? Buy them. You want to play on the maps you bought? Select option that includes them in the pool. I don't see what the problem is. There are no steps back.

Getting kinda tired of opening articles only to read the headline "UPDATE: Everything is actually fine and we just overreacted".

I don't know about you guys, but I'm getting pretty sick of not being able to play thing I don't own. Get with it Nintendo

Payday2 dealt with this problem in a very good way, players couldn't use DLC weapons, but they could still join DLC maps and have other players use DLC weapons.

the downside is that if you don't own the DLC you can't host a game on the new maps which is reasonable.