The two highest selling Mario Karts, the two highest selling Animal Crossings, and the highest selling Smash Bros. all have online multiplayer. It's not definitive, but it's convenient to formulate an argument with.

No one is saying they're being hurt at all. It's a matter of them being able to do even better by having a more user friendly service. Nintendo has online already. It's hard to believe an easier to use service would in any way lower sales of hardware or software. Worst case scenario it does nothing. Best case scenario there are increases.

However, yes eventually I believe online gameplay will play a bigger role even to the expanded audience, and at that time it can very well hinder Nintendo's performance.

Le sigh. The idea of losing existing consumers is evidence. Perhaps you simply fail to grasp this concept. With how big social networking has become, PSN/XBL have already begun to embrace this. Avatars, Home, Party Chat, etc are all about social interaction and the lack of a serious online presence only hinder Nintendo, it doesn't make it stronger. People will want it, and they'll respond if they don't get it. Guaranteed.

Okay, I was mainly asking for a bit more than a dozen "Nintendo needs better online!" posts. And that post was it.

captain obvious to the rescue aren't we, i thought wii owners liked using ridiculous codes to play together

All I want is the following

All games use the same Wii friend code that you use for things like posting messeges to people
All games then work the same as mario kart, you can join a random game, or find a friend and join them

And I'll be really annoyed if they change other stuff, such as making it so that people who aren't on your friend list can talk to you

That would be a very easy thing to switch on or off in a settings menu. Considering the amount of people that would probably like to have the ability to talk to strangers on the Wii, I think it's better to appease everyone if possible.

Bravo at being constructive here.  Really, I applaud you.  *slow clap*

Oooh...sorry Donkey Kong. I missed your post. I'm going to call it the same way I call Sony's sixaxis controller, it came very quickly after the competition did theirs, but I still feel there was enough time to observe others and get your own idea out based on their ideas. This is a case where I believe if MS had never created XBLA then I don't believe Nintendo would have created WiiWare. Considering it came out roughly 24 months after the announcement, I think it's very likely the announcement was made in the very early stages of planning or even before any work was being done and this was nothing more than Nintendo implementing a good idea they saw from MS.

That's true, well as long as I have the option then I'm happy

Yes to be honest I bought The Conduit hoping for better online capabilities. But without Wii speak in World Wide or regional needing to enter tons of friend codes. I quickly threw the Conduit on my shelf, nobody from my friends list was ever on and it just didn't seem worth the hassle when I can play Halo3 on Live with chat and vehicles.

If Nintendo improved their network I would gladly stop shelling out my 59$ a year and go with a Nintendo system instead. But the fact is Nintendo's system is flawed.

As for evidance that its hurting them. When Halo3 launched I remember their being 500,000+ gamers on live at any given time. Today that has dropped to between 40,000-70,000 depending on whether your playing social slayer or regular mode. That is essentiall 500,000 x 59.99$ = 29,995,000 in pure profit. Thats almost 30-million dollars earned from Live on the Halo3 launch alone. Today Halo brings in 4,199,300$ in X-Box Live subscriptions.

Thats only talking Halo its not even including all the other gamers who play other games online. Thats evidance that XBL is making a crap load of money and Nintendo is failing to generate such money. Sure Nintendo is giving us their service for free but if they improved their service thats less money in the competitions wallet.

Every dollar Microsoft gains from live is one less dollar spent on Nintendo products! Thats evidance enough for me!