Open All Night—But To What End?

If I could pinpoint one persistent complaint leveled at Wii today, even after concerns about the controls and processing power have mostly faded from prominence, it's the fact that games with online play require per-game Friend Codes to be registered, just like DS titles.

Complainers usually point to their Wii Address Books, already loaded with friends' System Numbers, and want to know why games can't just use this list as a sort of universal Friend Roster for Wii games with online play.

If you've read page 1, you know why this is: the Address Book is strictly for WiiConnect24, not for online play. But the confusion is certainly understandable; Nintendo is effectively operating two different online services, and the differences haven't been easily understood. (It also doesn't help that WiiConnect24 doesn't have a per-game permission model that matches the one Friend Codes provide.)

This disconnect is rather unhealthy; beyond the user confusion, it's resulted in a rather bizarre requirement for sending user-created stages and other content in Super Smash Bros. Brawl. Because the Wii Address Book is used for WiiConnect24, and Friend Codes are used for online play, and—the fatal blow—Brawl uses both, you'll need to register friends in two places to use functionality like this.

But there is a solution—one that shouldn't require launching a new service or breaking old games—one that, in fact, is something that can be added to any upcoming Wii game now.

The idea is pretty simple: online titles will still generate Friend Codes, as usual, and require Friend Codes to be registered to enable online play. However, when you get a new online-enabled Wii game, your modus operandi changes. Instead of copying down your Friend Code and giving it to your friends via other channels, the game would show you your Address Book (complete with Miis) and allow you to send invitations to anyone or everyone to play with you online, provided they have the same game.

The invitations would take the form of specially-crafted WiiConnect24 messages. When your invitee fires up said game, it would check the message queue and find the invitation. If approved, your Friend Code would be registered and your invitee's Friend Code sent back, completing the circle. If rejected (or if you are later deleted from that game's Roster), a rejection message could also be sent, automatically pruning your Friend Roster. Finally, if you wanted to, you could certainly just manually add Friend Codes just like old times.

The advantages of such a scheme are substantial. Neither you nor your friend need to see or key in a Friend Code. You still keep per-game control over your Friend Rosters. The Brawl conundrum is avoided because the game can keep track of the links between System Numbers and Friend Codes. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, no new online service needs to be rolled out—the components are all already there. Games just need to have this functionality added to them.


There's an additional advantage to the scheme presented above, even for games that might not support live online play and therefore not need to establish a Friend Roster for that function: broadcasting user content.

Several publishers have been dipping their toes into the notion of sharing user content, but it's taken the rather roundabout method of having to "send" it to other Wiis in one's Address Book. With access to a list of friends' Wiis who have a particular title, that title can now start automatically broadcasting user-created content such as stages and the like to friends' copies. Think of the Mii Parade on steroids.

There are a number of possibilities here. Custom stages are perhaps the most obvious, but you could even do things like expand the Photo Channel to "share" photos with interested parties. Instead of filing sent photos arriving on the Message Board, friends would merely browse a special commons area on their Photo Channel to pick up on their friends' latest photographic exploits.


These suggestions are all realistic, which I think is their most important feature. While it's true that services like Microsoft's Xbox Live offer far more fleshed-out versions of the ideas presented herein, I'm certainly not holding my breath for that level of online service for titles on a Nintendo system. Implementing the ideas I've presented here doesn't require Nintendo to launch a new online service—they're all doable with the existing infrastructure.

The real shame here isn't even so much that the features are missing, but that there's a service that's perfectly capable of building features like these on top of that is being woefully underutilized. Upcoming titles that will benefit greatly from online play—like Brawl and Mario Kart Wii—will likely miss out simply because ideas like these aren't being entertained at a fundamental level.

You built WiiConnect24, Nintendo, and I really do think you were right to be proud to have it. Now, please, make use of it.