What Wii games feature online play?

[Anthony1]

Ok, I was just reading through a bunch of Wii related news, and I came across this:


Q: What will the first online game be, where players can play against one another?
A: Japan announced a Pokemon battle game that will have online functionality -- that will be the first game in the U.S. as well.



Now, let me get this straight.... Wii Sports isn't an online enabled game? You mean I can't play against one of you guys head to head in Wii Sports online? What about Madden 07 for the Wii? Surely Madden would have to be online too, right? I thought Nintendo was finally getting hip to online play? So with Red Steel, there won't be online multiplayer deathmatch or anything? You've got to be kidding me. :eek 2:

The first online game is some Pokemon battle game? WTF? You mean that Need For Speed Carbon and stuff like that aren't going to be playable online for the Wii? Why? I don't get this. The Wii is Wi-Fi from jump street, and Nintendo is really stressing all the online functions but no online multiplayer? What about Call of Duty or Splinter Cell? These games are going to be online on PS3 and Xbox 360 and Xbox 1 and PS2, but not on the Wii? Does this make any sense to anybody? Hopefully I'm just confused about this, and I don't understand what he meant or something.

[JWKobayashi]

Yes, from everything I've read, there won't be a launch game in the US that is online. Pokemon will be the first, and it will follow sometime by the end of the year.

Personally, I don't think that it's a big deal. I'd rather wait and have them get it right than to try to do it out of the gate and screw it up.

[Doom Gaze]

Ubi Soft and EA officials have said that they may have plans to add online functionality to their games through WiiConnect24.

That wiins.

[ubersaurus]

No launch games are online. In fact no 3rd party is getting online play before Nintendo (which clearly isn't a particularly long timetable with Pokemon in December).

Xbox or DS didn't have any online games for a year. I'll accept 2 weeks :P

[Anthony1]

For anybody that has had Xbox Live since the 360 launched, it's going to be very painfull for me to not be playing any of the Wii Sports games online. I mean, that's where all the fun is. I guess if you've never played Xbox Live, then you wouldn't know what your missing, but with the 360, I'm pretty sure every single game has some type of online component, even if it's just leaderboards or something. I thought that was pretty much going to be standard from now on. I know Sony is copying everything with the PS3, and I heard about the Wii having Wi-Fi built in, and all that, I had no freaking idea that none of the launch games are online, that absolutely baffles me! I though we were going to have to use some dumn friends codes and crap like that, I mean I knew that Nintendo didn't have a Xbox Live type setup with a Gamertag and all that, but I didn't have the slightest idea that none of the launch games were online till just yesterday. Man, what a shocker.


I guess Nintendo is going to have to be dragged kicking and screaming into the online gameplaying world. I'm still getting my Wii on day 1, but this is very suprising news to me. I can't believe more people aren't shocked by this. I guess I just never read the memo, lol.

[norkusa]

I guess Nintendo is going to have to be dragged kicking and screaming into the online gameplaying world. I'm still getting my Wii on day 1, but this is very suprising news to me. I can't believe more people aren't shocked by this. I guess I just never read the memo, lol.

Yeah, really. How much longer is it going to take them? And the "they need time to sort everything out and do it right" excuse is getting really old. They've had PLENTY of time to figure it out. They took that approach with the DS and the whole Friends Code thing still ended up being a complete mess.

The whole online set-up doesn't have to be 'innovative' like the Wii. Just just rip-off Live like how Sony is doing and get some freakin online games out there for cryin out loud. x_x

[WhoMetFan]

Yeah, it would've been fun to play Wii Sports online out of the box...I guess we'll have to wait for "Wii Sports Delux Super Online Melee!" to come out 1/2 after launch before we can play it online. Oh, the Wii doesn't have an ethernet port right?[/i]

[Anthony1]

You know, what's more disturbing to me about this whole lack of online games thing, is the fact that Nintendo might not do what I'm really hoping they do with their Virtual Console games. Online, head to head play with some of their Virtual Console games. For example, lots of sports games could have online play added, like Tecmo Bowl for the NES, for example, but even more important would be the online play for games like Mario Kart for the SNES. Mario Kart is one of my favorite games of all time, and being able to play that game online, head to head against other gamers would be awesome! I'm pretty sure you can do that via emulation on a PC, but I would rather do it on a console like the Wii.


The fact that none of the current Wii games are online, does worry me that maybe Nintendo will drop the ball with that too. They have to understand that alot of the success and hype with people downloading old games on Xbox Live Arcade, is the fact that the majority of them can be played online, and also the whole achievement thing. I actually hope Nintendo copies the achievement idea in some way, cause I know alot of the best games to ever appear on Nintendo consoles are never going to hit Xbox Live Arcade, even some of the big 3rd party ones.

[s1lence]

All I'm saying is that it better have Bad Street Brawler or Total Recall, those games own.

[NintenDk]

I guess Anthony1 is going to have to be dragged kicking and screaming into the wii gameplaying world. I'm still getting my Wii on day 1, but this is very suprising news to me. I can't believe more people aren't shocked by this. I guess I just never read the memo, lol.

LOL yes dragged kicking and screaming all the way hahahahah

[NintenDk]

Yeah, really. How much longer is it going to take them? And the "they need time to sort everything out and do it right" excuse is getting really old. They've had PLENTY of time to figure it out.

I always liked the excuse "because they can" works donit?

[ubersaurus]

Yeah, it would've been fun to play Wii Sports online out of the box...I guess we'll have to wait for "Wii Sports Delux Super Online Melee!" to come out 1/2 after launch before we can play it online. Oh, the Wii doesn't have an ethernet port right?[/i]

It's all wifi.

[SkiDragon]

I heard that it can also use "a wire" to connect, whatever that means. I would assume ethernet.

[NintenDk]

I hope for ethernet capability why is eveything wireless?

[ubersaurus]

Here's what gets me.

It's a free online service. You don't pay any money unless you're buying downloadable games, or anything, just like the DS. The DS online service is pretty solid, it's easy to use, and yeah, keeping track of all the friend codes can be a pain, but I'm not paying any extra for this service. I'll manage one minor inconvenience.

And yet you have people complaining they'll have to wait all of what, 3, 4 weeks? to play a game on the wii's online service. Oh, the horror. A couple of weeks. Cry me a river. If it's anything like the DS, the online component will be easy as hell to connect(unlike the Xbox, which gave me fits to the point where I had to call tech support just to get it running) and capable of far more than I had expected for something I wouldn't be paying for. It may not be Xbox Live, but I'm not shelling out 50 bucks a year for it. It's allowed to be inferior in my mind.

I highly, highly doubt that you'll see online play for VC games. As far as they've implied, it's just emulated games. Perhaps the new downloadable ones will be online(I could see that happening) but mario kart, or starfox 64? Just highly unlikely.

Like I said, it took Nintendo a year before Mario Kart DS came out and started the online play there, and it's been pretty successful thus far, and something they've been pushing. I've got faith that they can pull it off on the Wii.

[jajaja]

Is it WiFi only? Is it the same with the DS too?

[NintenDk]

Is it WiFi only? Is it the same with the DS too?

probably, its the one real downside. All these comments saying Nintendo should just copy xbox's online service instradind of doing their own thing, cmon that would be the dumbest thing ever, if I want xbox I'll play an xbox.

[jajaja]

Ok, so that means i must by a wireless router to get online, kinda sux :\

[JJNova]

Ok, so that means i must by a wireless router to get online, kinda sux :\

GET ONE FOR CHRISTMAS ALONG WITH THE ONLINE POKEMON GAME!!! YES YES YES!!!

Anthony1, seriously, why couldn't you of ranted and raved about this in another Wii thread? The original post is nothing but a rally chant for all us gamers to demand an explanation and cause an uproar at Nintendo. ESPECIALLY since you don't even fucking want Wii Sports. Pretend like you rented it, and then feel like you're just screwed out of 3 days without online play. So even if Wii Sports DID have online play, you would of only experienced it for as long as the game rental. Kwitcherbitchin' about each miniscule disappointment that didn't meet the expectations you had imagined. At least pick something solid to complain about so that a few people can stand behind you and go, "YEAH MOTHERFUCKERS!" instead of being embarassed to agree with the guy that complains about not having online play featured in a game he doesn't want to play anyway.

[norkusa]

And yet you have people complaining they'll have to wait all of what, 3, 4 weeks? to play a game on the wii's online service. Oh, the horror. A couple of weeks. Cry me a river. If it's anything like the DS, the online component will be easy as hell to connect(unlike the Xbox, which gave me fits to the point where I had to call tech support just to get it running) and capable of far more than I had expected for something I wouldn't be paying for. It may not be Xbox Live, but I'm not shelling out 50 bucks a year for it. It's allowed to be inferior in my mind.


Yeah, only wait a month to play *one* online game which happens to be a Pokemon title? No thanks, I'll wait 'till some of the good ones come out.

What gets me is people trying to justify Nintendo's weak online support by saying it's free. Just because they aren't charging for it doesn't make it good. I'd rather pay for something that works smooth like Live (which was incredibly easy to install and had zero problems with in 3+ years) than a free, stripped-down and featureless mess of an online service like the DS has.

Don't get me wrong, I'll be getting a Wii on launch and some online games when they eventually come out. I just wish they had them ready sooner.

[NickmasterX]

Battalion Wars 2?

[NickmasterX]

Battalion Wars 2? isnt SSB Brawl suppposed to have online play?

[Anthony1]

ESPECIALLY since you don't even fucking want Wii Sports. Pretend like you rented it, and then feel like you're just screwed out of 3 days without online play. So even if Wii Sports DID have online play, you would of only experienced it for as long as the game rental. Kwitcherbitchin' about each miniscule disappointment that didn't meet the expectations you had imagined.



When did I say I didn't want Wii Sports? It's actually my "most wanted Wii game" from the entire freaking lineup, and that includes Zelda. What I said, is that I don't want to pay $50 for Wii Sports (which is essentially what is happening), and I also said that I have a "rental only" policy for any game above $29.99. Also, when I'm talking about my "rental only" policy, I'm not talking about renting a game for 3 days. Some of my games I rent for only 3 days, but most of them I rent for months and months at a time. There are certain places on the internet that will rent you games for ridiculously low prices, where you can even keep them for months on end, and hardly pay anything, thus my desire to not want to pay more than $29.99 for a game, because it isn't logical to do so when I happen to have these rental plans available to me.


So I'm not being screwed out of 3 days of online play with Wii Sports. Had I been able to just rent Wii Sports, I would have likely rented it for a full 3 months, if not more, so I'm actually be screwed out of 3 months or more of online play, if you want to look at it like that. I have absolutely no problem waiting a few more weeks for online play to be available, but unless I'm misunderstanding something, Wii Sports is not going to be playable online in 3 weeks or in 3 months from now. Neither is Madden 07 or Call of Duty or Red Steel or anything else, except the Pokemon game which I have absolutely no interest in. I could easily wait a month or two for their online service to get up and running if all those games would magically turn into online games at that point, but I'm pretty sure that isn't going to be the case. Apparently, unlike 360 and PS3, online games will be the exception on the Wii and not the norm. I definitely will aplogize for the fact that I had no idea this was going to be the case. I just assumed that online play was pretty much standard in the year 2006, and that with the Wii, and it's built in Wi-Fi, that this was no longer going to be an issue. I honestly havent really been paying much attention to Nintendo's specific online strategy, and I was just assuming that the majority of Wii games were going to have online functionality. It was a big mistake on my part for me to assume that, and I apologize for it.