I remember a rumor a month or 2 ago about origin or steam being the main service for nintendo. That didn't really surprise me, considering nintendo is very new to the online space and giving someone else the job seems rather logical. One thing I have noticed though, is that EA recently has LOVED the Wii U. They were the first one to say the Wii U's online was great at E3. When ever someone mentions the WII U to EA, they say how flexible and great it is. In fact i remember EA something like this at E3, 'Over the years I've made E3 appearances with several console partners, but never before with Nintendo.' Why would EA suddenly be so interested in Nintendo. To me, it seems like EA has offered some money to nintendo to make EA's Origin for the Wii U. What do you guys think?

I think that if Nintendo goes with Origin. The Wii U will be the first Nintendo console I don't own.

They likely will allow EA to manage their own affairs online on the Wii U, which will be an interesting experiment in seeing if consumers really want what EA has to offer in that space: essentially, if EA gets to release the games under precisely the terms that they want to release them, and this ends up making the Wii U versions inferior in a roundabout way, how will EA react?

I thought that was Sony for you? I'm confused. You need to rank your heirarchy of evil corps so they know where they stand with you. Otherwise how is one going to be able to point at the other and say "Hah! Rol hates you more than us!"

Won't happen.

If Origin is required for all Wii U online games, then that means no Call of Duty on Wii U.

No
Nintendo said they would let publishers set up their own online so EA games will use it to some degree (not the store part, Nintendo won't let anyone else take a share of that pie) but Activision, Valve etc will use their own services.

Nintendo would be dumb to not use Steam "if" they use 3rd party service next gen for online services, really really fucking dumb. Serious gamers would flock to Wii U if they advertise Steam as their base framework for online services, but I doubt it'll happen, Japanese people are not smart enough for that sometimes in their decision making when it comes to the western market.

Well so far Nintendo have just said that the WiiU's online will be publisher driven, so i wouldn't be surprised to see games requiring stream, origin, new_activision_service, Nintendo Network accounts and more.

That's how I see it. Everyone will have a Nintendo Network account, and whenever you use a third party one, it should integrate seamlessly with just a confirmation screen. No registration required, please, maybe letting people use their old third party account if they really want to.

I despise Steam, and only the nerd people I know seem to like it. I am not sure about Origin, if it is better or worse. All I know is that everything that seems to go wrong with PC games nowadays is some sort of bug or connection issue linked to Steam.