Not to be a dick but not all of us have tons of spare time to waste playing games at a friend's house. Some of us have jobs, kids, relationships, etc...  that also goes for friend's we have. This is why games should have online play, for those who do have have this time luxury so many on this site seem to think everyone has these days.

Because most Wii games dont have online as a standard feature?

Please check my profile before labeling me. I am 25 years old, have a gaming collection of over 250-300 titles ranging from the Atari 2600 to the Wii. Your profile shows no age for all I know you may actually be a "newer" gamer than I am.

Euphoira14, you handled that all wrong.

Anyway, at 25, playing games with your friends becomes more difficult than it was at 16 or 17 or even younger. People have lives as Euphoira14 has stated. And while there was an arcade scene and other local ways to play games, those scenes are largely non-existent today. Online play has replaced arcades very much in America, so game developers should give us thee option to play random players. The upside is playing more than your local gaming community, the downside is lag can hinder to ruin the game play. But I want thee option to hinder my game play. Where I live now, there is not much of a gaming community yet I have high speed interent. Can you see where I am going here?

@Euphoria

I'm sorry and yes I am younger than you. (I'm 22) I don't usually read peoples profiles, though. It sounded like you had no concept of playing games with people that are physically near you, but it sounds like you're a busy man with a wife, kids and a job. I also take it family game nights are out of the question.

But still having online for a game like this would be like having online for Tic Tac Toe.

I wasn't trying to say it in a mean way. I just came back from lunch and realized that it most likely came out much differently than I intended.

If liquidninja was offended I apologize.

Not sure if I am understanding you perfectly but if you're saying what I think you're saying I must agree. I would much rather them attempt online play and fail due to lag, etc... than to not try at all.

 Well said!

I actually love playing games more locally than online and I don't feel as though this particular instance is a huge deal. I was just curious to see if anyone knew exactly why they chose not to implement it.

^I am not an online person very much... in fact if the Wii version of F12009 turns out to not have online I actually won't be that bothered, I am all for online racing (come on Nintendo, online F-Zero please) but I don't think I would enjoy it in a Formula 1 setting, probably because there would enevitably be some people messing about, or just not good enough to look proffesional as the CPU will do, which I wouldn't like.

Anyhow, my point was I would have liked online in Punch Out, in fact I would probably be buying it if it did have online.... but I believe this is being made as a crowd pleaser game, and as I didn't play the original I only have mild interest in it.

Nintendo still living in the past? Lazy devs? They've missed many opportunities with many games in the past like Metroid Prime 3: Corruption and Excite Truck, and it still surprises me that they're still doing this in the 4th year of this generation.

Though, I want to think that they're trying to give a message here; that most good games (even nowadays) should not solely be based on their online/multiplayer modes but also (and mostly) their singleplayer/career modes. As long as adding multiplayer in a game for them is second nature, well, I guess we can't really complain because the singleplayer mode is going to be good for sure! o_O