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Forums - Nintendo Discussion - Piecing together info on the Wii U's online.

 

Your reaction on the WIi U's online

Go Nintendo! 10 40.00%
 
Welcome to 2001 Nintendo. 7 28.00%
 
??? 2 8.00%
 
I just wanna see the results. 6 24.00%
 
Total:25

Info about the Wii U's online has been hinted at several times by 3rd parties. I'm just exploiting quotes from them, putting the pieces together, and making a prediction at the end. Important stuff is bolded. 

 

Peter Moore thinks that Nintendo has finally gotten serious about online, and EA is helping them with it. Link

"“We’re a long way away from [Wii U] going live, but their intentions are good,” he said. “They recognize they fell behind a little bit with the Wii at the same time Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 are accelerating by the tens of millions of users. You weren’t getting that level of interaction and engagement from Wii consumers.

 

Nintendo has recognized the future is connected. The future is online. The future is about building powerful communities. They know they have to do that, and certainly with the conversations I’ve been in with them I’m very optimistic. We all need to help them, which we’re all willing to do. When I say “we” I mean developers and publishers bringing their best practices.

“I think it would be great to have three, powerful online game networks going at it with each other.”

 

  • Nintendo did say that they would rather let publishers talk about the Wii U's online, so this is a good sign of things to come. The Wii U launches in another year, so there are probably a lot more secrets to be revealed. 

Adam Blunt of Ubisoft says that Nintendo has stepped into the 21st century and ditched friend codes. 

"Also the ability to easily find friends. Rather than using friend codes, which we've had in the past, we're able to connect players in a much easier way, which allows us to have a community that's playing together in the game."

 

  • This pretty mich speaks for itself. Welcome to the 21st century Nintendo. (sarcasm)

 

-Kotick talks "deep rich multiplayer games" on the Wii U

-Nintendo is planning a non-unified online service

-Iwata talks about the Wii U's online

Putting the pieces together

I would assume that the Wii U's online will be non-unified like the PS2, but there will still be some Nintendo branded "thing" going on. EA is making the Wii U's online, so that is good news. They are the only publisher currently working with dedicated servers, so the chances of the Wii U using dedicated servers are a lot higher. Nintendo won't say a thing for obvious reasons, and 3rd parties are being tight lipped as well, so like I said, there are still secrets under wraps at Nintendo. DLC is coming, FCs are gone, and they are getting serious about downloadable games. All of this is good news. Overall, the Wii U will have a good online service. 



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I think we just won't be able to tell how good it will be, even if they seriously previewed it, until after its released. Then depending on how much load the servers can take, how often the services are upgraded with innovations, etc, we can start to talk. It's just way too early.



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I still think what we'll end up getting is a Hub system. That's the direction the hints and comments point me in. What I picture is this.

At the center of it will be Nintendo's interface. That is where you'll have access to Nintendo's online store, your profile, messaging, Miis, etc. Any smaller company that wants in will sell their digital games through their service if they decided like the Wii Ware/VC/eShop now. Maybe they get their own page to make things easier to navigate.

From there we'll have specific online systems from the big publishers. EA will have their Origin system and Nintendo provides a way to access it. EA controls that and what is sold in it. You might also have Ubisoft's UPlay system. Etc... How this might work well for the console is that Nintendo allows a single account to be connected with all these systems. These companies control their own patching, updates, sales, etc. Friend list for their games might be housed here. Maybe system friend list can be connected or not.

This is what I think Nintendo is working on developing with Ubisoft and EA as those two seem to be working closely with Nintendo. They are also the ones pushing their own digital platforms and don't want Valve to have a monopoly on digital delivery for games. This is the only way I can see a system that isn't centralized like PSN and Xbox Live but isn't an absolute mess that was PS2.



In a lot of ways the internet has evolved alot since XBox Live was introduced in 2002 and I believe Nintendo could potentially produce a more successful online service than Sony or Microsoft if they design it based on the changes in how people use the internet and attempt to disrupt conventional online services. Essentially, currently online games are (almost) strictly competitive in nature while people's interactions IRL and online are rather diverse; what this means is you could build an online service which was designed around a broader set of interactions and, since it wasn't simply competitive in nature, many people who weren't typically interested in online gameplay might become interested.



My guess is it will range somewhere between PSN and 3DS in terms of service quality. Leaning more towards the 3DS end if they retain centralized user friend codes



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its going to be the best online service ever... because its nintendo...