So many people are mad about no online but they are perfectly fine with no local multi-player on so many games?

I'm not fine with this at all.  Think it is ridiculous that a million years after Goldeneye there are still multi-player games with no local multi-player (I am looking at you Conduit).  If a game is multi-player it should be fully multi-player.  That is, online multi-player and local multi-player.  It shouldn't be one or the other. 

Fact. Punch Out was fun with no online and no multiplayer.

I see two big arguments against online showing up here. One is that online multiplayer shouldn't be done because it adds nothing to the game, and the other is that it cannot be done due to technical limitations in networking.

The first argument doesn't make any sense to me. Nintendo obviously feels that multiplayer does add something to the game, since they've decided to include a local multiplayer option. Unlike some games, I don't see how a fighting game loses all of its appeal if the players are sitting in different rooms, so if Punch Out!! really is worth playing multiplayer, it should be worth playing online. If online multiplayer is no fun than local shouldn't be either, and Nintendo shouldn't have included it in the game (*cough* Metroid Prime 2).

The second argument is flat out false. Punch Out!! is a fighting game. Yes, lag does terrible things to fighting games, but that hasn't stopped several fighting games this generation from building viable online modes, including Nintendo's own Super Smash Bros. Brawl. Online fighting games have limitations, but those limitations should be manageable.

#3:  Nintendo doesn't feel it will add to the experience.

I'd say that fits under number one, actually. I feel that online play adds nothing to Rock Band, personally, but that doesn't seem to stop Harmonix from making the mode and other people from enjoying it. I can actually see the appeal of online fighting.

I would think that Nintendo sees that appeal, too, since they added it to Brawl.

Perhaps #3 should be: Nintendo doesn't feel that added sales from including the feature will justify the investment.

Weird.  I must have totally misread your first reason.  I could have sworn you said something else there.  My #3 = your #1.

Games have to be designed with online multiplayer from the start.. otherwise the online portion might not turn out very well..

Why no online play? This is Nintendo were talking about! How many serious online games (ex MKWii) has Nintendo published on Wii? Not many thats what.

what's up with the online obsession? I agree that having it as an option is OK but it should not change the game from a must buy to a must rent. Punch-Out is not really a true boxing game, is more about pattern recognition and speed, thus it really doesn't lend itself to any type of multiplayer mode.

We still don't know the details of the local multiplayer, but I bet is more of a trainnig mode of some type and not part of the main game.