Well that and Brawl, TvC, Battalion wars 2, Excite bots, Monster Hunter 3, The Conduit, and I hear the CoD games are pretty good (I don't have any of those, though I may buy MWR if it gets a price drop)

I think they totally have enough third party support to implement a paid online structure, of course I'm talking about one that is  heavily improved.  The developers out there are already more than happy to make online for their games on the Wii with it's current, horrible, system so if they supe it up I can only see them bringing even more titles to the table.

the wii's online is ok, geez you guys are talking like its horrendous... the only problem is it isn't worth paying for maybe next gen when they acturally get into the online gaming servers and acturally give us a online community like XBL and PSN

The wiiconnect24 doesn't let them upload content on consoles during standby?
Why don't use this to upload advertisment to finance the online structures?
I mean, they could run short ads during load times in online sessions, I would prefer this than to pay a monthly fee. Or also they could let you decide to play online free (with ads) or paying for a subscription (without ads).

They would need to build up some serious infrastructure before they could even think about charging money. I still can't believe they are only now starting to take online seriously.

It hasn't really hurt them so far, near as i can tell. Nintendo hasn't missed out on anything, sales-wise, by having a weaker online infrastructure. The only possibility might be Animal Crossing, but that had more problems than weak online.

For me personally it was one of the reasons why I got an xbox. I haven't bought a Wii game in over a year. Obviously I am only one customer my lack of sales doesn't affect them in any real sense. You are definitely right, it hasn't necessarily hurt them, but they could have been much stronger if they had a better system in place.

Nintendo's online infrastructure is pitiful. With all the money they've made, it should be at least half as good as Xbox Live. But, since there's no definitive evidence that they've lost money by not being as proactive as their competitors, Nintendo has no reason to spend any money fixing their inadequate and un-unified online network. The thing I don't get is, wouldn't it make more business since to beef up their infrastructure now, when their winning across the board, and be able to provide current and future customers with an on par online experience. Its only a matter of time before the casual's realize how great online gaming is and what they've been missing out on.

Take out Friend Codes, make one universal gamer tag like 360 or pS3, have a profile where people can see your games/achievements and have random friend adding, I'd gladly pay 50 bucks a year.
But I guess I just described the other consoles then.

very proactive compared to a lump of moss maybe. almost not worth mentioning when compared to their competitors.

Very sad but very true. Nintendo crippled themselves from the start with the desicion to continue the "friend codes PER GAME" system that the DS had. I remember back before launch that talk was the Wii would have a single console code, and swapping that would register all other online compatible games. Obviously thats not he case.

But of all the companies to demand paid online servive, it should be Sony, and least of all Nintendo. We know Sony doesnt make much off each system sold (and for the last 3 years it lost money), but Nintendo is selling much older hardware at a high price AND sellls more than both its competators combined. If anything, they should take a few punches to satisfy a sect of their consumers wants.