Nintendo announced a rather unique feature at Wii's coming-out party at E3 2006. They called it "WiiConnect24", and while they tossed out a few examples of what it could do (see the sidebar for more information), Nintendo fans were listening quite intently.
Needless to say, imaginations ran wild.
My own train of thought went something like this. As someone who's been perhaps more curious than most about Nintendo's online infrastructure—a service that's certifiably Nintendo, whether to its advantage or detriment—I immediately thought of the recent debut of Animal Crossing: Wild World.
The game-hosting network model, realized as "opening your gates", as well as the bidirectional permission granted by Friend Codes that enforced the sanctity of your well-manicured garden within those gates fit the Animal Crossing model rather well. Implementation problems aside, I couldn't help but think that the Wi-Fi Connection was designed specifically with Animal Crossing in mind.
Perhaps a little too logically, I thought this new "WiiConnect24" was perfect for a feature I thought could benefit Animal Crossing: while your Wii is off, your town is still open for your friends across all time zones and working schedules to visit. I even went so far as to elaborate on the possibilities in a recent article exploring future possibilities for the franchise.
Unfortunately, reality has since clubbed me over the head.
A Reality Check
While it's still possible that WiiConnect24 has a future in Animal Crossing, it's far more likely you'll see things that are based on the game's postal system—because WiiConnect24 is not a system by which users connect to each other. It's strictly a messaging system.
(I should issue a brief disclaimer here: I don't have any inside information on the Wi-Fi Connection or WiiConnect24. But based on my observation of how the system has been implemented in titles and the Wii system itself so far, I'm quite confident my interpretation is the correct one.)
While most people will think "e-mail" when they hear the word "messaging", though, it's important to understand that messaging isn't limited to sending human-readable blocks of text back and forth. To realize WiiConnect24's potential, you must first recognize that messages can carry any form of data. Secondly, you must understand the difference between connections and messaging.
There are two key components to Wii's online system, which is really just DS's online system with a messaging component thrown into the mix. Ever wondered why your Wii System Number is sixteen digits while your game-specific Friend Codes are only twelve? And—as many have wondered, even in print—why Friend Codes are needed on Wii at all? The two codes actually represent entirely different things.
The DS has its own version of the Wii System Number, for starters. (If you'd like to see yours, pop in a WFC game, go into the connection setup, Options, and System Information. Here it's called a "Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection ID", and you'll note that it looks exactly like a Wii System Number. The 16-digit number identifies the system itself.)
WiiConnect24 was built on top of this system ID because it's a service run by the Wii System itself. This is why games that have message-based online functionality can use the System Numbers you've populated your Address Book with. A game like Elebits puts the custom levels and photos you send into an area where the WiiConnect24 software will pick it up and get it sent on to the appropriate person; similarly, incoming messages intended for Elebits will be put into a pick-up area by the WiiConnect24 software and be picked up by the game next time it's fired up.
A Friend Code means something else entirely: it's both identifier and permission to connect, to support live online play . The reason it's game-specific is because of one important piece of functionality: the ability to allow other consoles to connect on a game-by-game basis. This is the aforementioned Animal Crossing model at work: you don't necessarily want your town full of the same ne'er-do-wells you'd happily demolish in a game of Tetris DS.
Now that we're clear what WiiConnect24 can—and can't—do, let's move on to the crux of the matter: what it isn't doing (or at least isn't doing a whole lot of), even though it could.