No online for 3rd party Wii

Ace Pace · Post by **Ace Pace** » 2006-08-28 03:04am

Buried at the bottom of an IGN preview for the Wii's Tony Hawk's Downhill Jam is the news that not only is this game not going to feature any online component, but every 3rd-party game that comes out for the Wii won't support anything online either. Not until 2007 will publishers be able to offer up Wi-Fi gaming to eager players who picked up a Wii.

Gamers hoping for an online component, however, are in for bad news, because one isn't planned. Activision would not say why, but IGN has separately learned from multiple development sources that Nintendo will not release Wii Wi-Fi Connection libraries to third parties until early 2007, which means that no third party launch title will have an online mode.

Well, that's pretty awful. Seems like a pretty dumb move not to allow your third-party developers to offer online play with your launch titles. Online gaming has arguably become essential for most players and considering your system isn't in high-def or truly next-gen graphics wise, what other incentive besides a different control scheme would a gamer have in picking up your product?

Check after the break for the possible launch titles that would certainly be affected by this.

Possible launch titles that could be majorly affected by not having online play:

Blazing Angels: Squadrons of WWII
Blitz: The League
Call of Duty 3
Dragon Ball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi 2
Far Cry
Madden NFL 07
Marvel: Ultimate Alliance
Need for Speed: Carbon
Rayman Raving Rabbids
Red Steel
Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz
Tony Hawk's Downhill Jam

atg · Post by **atg** » 2006-08-28 03:19am

What kind of stupidity is this? It's no so bad that it is only until next year, but the online mode should be available to the developers of all the launch titles.

To take an example from the list given, games like CoD3 would relly heavily on a online mode.

Andrew J. · Post by **Andrew J.** » 2006-08-28 07:54am

Sorry, I do that whenever I see "IGN."

Ace Pace · Post by **Ace Pace** » 2006-08-28 08:00am

Andrew J. wrote:

Sorry, I do that whenever I see "IGN."

Join the club, but as far as I know, IGN has yet to start lying about such things.

Spanky The Dolphin · Post by **Spanky The Dolphin** » 2006-08-28 08:20am

Wow, this announcement totally evaporates into a whole lot of nothing.

Seriously; "Oh no, no third-party online games for the Wii!!...um, for a few months at least..."

Praxis · Post by **Praxis** » 2006-08-28 12:37pm

Strange that the leaked wii.nintendo.com pages claimed Tony Hawk's Downhill Jam was online...it must have been originally planned as an online game.

I wonder why Nintendo would hold back the libraries? A lot of third party games will be online on the PS2/XBox/360/PS3 versions (Call of Duty, Madden, Marvel Ultimate Alliance).

Perhaps they are going to be testing it first (being their first console online network), or maybe they're just being jerks. Dunno.

Post by **Beowulf** » 2006-08-28 02:40pm

Praxis wrote:Strange that the leaked wii.nintendo.com pages claimed Tony Hawk's Downhill Jam was online...it must have been originally planned as an online game.

I wonder why Nintendo would hold back the libraries? A lot of third party games will be online on the PS2/XBox/360/PS3 versions (Call of Duty, Madden, Marvel Ultimate Alliance).

Perhaps they are going to be testing it first (being their first console online network), or maybe they're just being jerks. Dunno.

Possibly they're having alot of problem with the online libraries, and want to do alot of testing before they let it out into the wild. Since the launch date for the console is fairly set, they're solving the problem by restricting the libraries to themselves, for now.

Elaro · Post by **Elaro** » 2006-08-28 06:58pm

Perhaps they are going to be testing it first (being their first console online network), or maybe they're just being jerks. Dunno.

Plant me firmly in the "they're testing it" category. And remember, developers can update their game using WiiConnect24.

Archaic` · Post by **Archaic`** » 2006-08-28 07:26pm

Hmmm, now that's a good point. It's possible that a lot of these games may be patched in future, to allow for the online play.

Praxis · Post by **Praxis** » 2006-08-29 04:30am

Although space is limited in the 512 MB of built in memory, so just how much modifications developers will do is restricted.

aphexmonster · Post by **aphexmonster** » 2006-08-29 07:48pm

I wouldn't be suprized if nintendo did this. They're cool and everything, but they always have to do something that i dont approve of, its like clockwork. Anytime they do something cool, they have to counter ballance it with something equally as suck ... i.e. supernintendo =gold, virtuaboy = .... okay so that was a cheap shot ... but the no 3rd party online play has the stench of nintendo all over it - they wouldn't want to impliment A. games that aren't theres, and they dont want to play nice with the other companies ...

DPDarkPrimus · Post by **DPDarkPrimus** » 2006-08-30 12:38am

aphexmonster wrote:I wouldn't be suprized if nintendo did this. They're cool and everything, but they always have to do something that i dont approve of, its like clockwork. Anytime they do something cool, they have to counter ballance it with something equally as suck ... i.e. supernintendo =gold, virtuaboy = .... okay so that was a cheap shot ... but the no 3rd party online play has the stench of nintendo all over it - they wouldn't want to impliment A. games that aren't theres, and they dont want to play nice with the other companies ...

Way to read the thread title and not the article.