Nintendo has kicked off an eight-week marketing campaign to heavily promote the online capabilities of Wii.
The new 'Get it Online' campaign has kicked off with a huge banner on Nintendo's website site which takes you through to a series of movies that show you how to get the Wii connected to the internet, play multiplayer games and browse the Wii Shop.
The page also invites users to submit their mobile numbers to receive text links to mobile versions of the videos.
Mario Kart Wii trailer
Official trailer
1:56The latest in Nintendo's classic racing series in action
Mario Kart Wii trailer
Official trailer
1:56The latest in Nintendo's classic racing series in action
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Mario Kart Wii trailer
Official trailer
1:56The latest in Nintendo's classic racing series in action
Nintendo hopes this will give Wii online gaming a boost in the battle against the well-established PSN and Xbox Live, the latter of which is projected to generate £680m in subscription fees by 2013.
Multiplayer titles like Super Smash Bros. Brawl, Pro Evo and (CVG all-time favourite) Mario Kart Wii are some of the main titles highlighted by the new campaign.
It seems like Nintendo wants to take online gaming a little more seriously than you might think.
Presumably the headline is meant to state "Nintendo begins online push", as opposed to "beings online push". Tut tut.
Edit: I see someone's corrected it now, eh? Let's just pretend it didn't happen. Just like how the story about new racer "Blur" refers to what should be "locales" as "locals".
my main issue with wii online is that its an after thought and them friend id codes make life hell, what is that all about anyway!
I feel sorry for my wii, it doesn't get much use as most of the games are gimmicks, and I don't want to buy serious games for it just in case they over use the gimmick!
It's about bloody time Nintendo started taking this more seriously. Hopefully, now the limited storage capability of the Wii is no longer such an issue, we'll get more DLC for new games too (and the same on the DSi for that matter).
Nintendo need to do much more than just promote online games and the wii shop, they need to update and improve the whole interface, something similar to the NXE update on 360, because right now they're way behind XBL and PSN on the online community front.
Until they dump friend codes, I wont be playing online on my wii on a regular basis. It's a real pain in the bottom. In this day and age, unified friend lists is a given. Nintendo, as much as I love em, have got their heads burried firmly in the sand on this and storage.
There is no storage problem anymore. Now that you can play games right off the DS things have opened up a hell of a lot. Update your wii, it brilliant that now my collection of wiiware and vc and all be accessed at once straight from the main menu. The biggest wiiware apps are only 45mb tops too. and you can pick a 2 gb card up for less than a fiver and you can fit a hell of a lot on it. If you want something bigger it now supports hd sd cards up to 32gb. now correct me if i'm wrong but isn't that's more than the old premium 360 had and only marginally less than the budget ps3. Granted bith now have more space but considering the wii's file sizes are that much smaller than the competition it really is more than enough.
The only thing the wii really needs is a better way to organise its apps when they're on your machine. scrolling through page and pages of games isn't very conviennt. but it does return you to the last page you visited on the sd menu each time you start it up. so its not too bad.
On the online front it looks like the wii is going to start taking it a little more seriously games wise as most of thier upcoming releases are going to have some kind of online functionality.
Granted friend codes should be dumped and wii speak should be implemented in more games. but its not like you can't game against people that aren't on your friend list. And most of the chatter on games playing on live and PSN is just idiot yammering on and being abusive anyway.
I can't see them dumping friend codes... although they did change their minds on the SD card usage, so never say never.
It would be nice if we only needed to share one code per console, and not one per game. I'd also like to a way to see if my friends are online or playing a game.
It all seems like pretty standard stuff for online gaming :s
Nintendo need to do much more than just promote online games and the wii shop, they need to update and improve the whole interface, some similar to the NXE update on 360, because right now they're way behind XBL and PSN.
Exactly what I was gonna say. Nintendo need much, MUCH more than a 'big push' towards online, they need to completely overhaul it.
Everyone keeps complaining about friend codes, I agree it is an annoying concept especially with games like Animal Crossing. But its in place for a reason if for example you were playing AC:City Folk with someone you didnt know and they trashed your town, how angry would you be then. Besides Mario Kart, Smash Bros, PES, Fifa, Madden, Call of Duty, Medal of Honor I dont know if I've missed any games, dont need friend codes to play them online. In my opinion this is just people complaining for nothing.
Everyone keeps complaining about friend codes, I agree it is an annoying concept especially with games like Animal Crossing. But its in place for a reason if for example you were playing AC:City Folk with someone you didnt know and they trashed your town, how angry would you be then.
Presumably you wouldn't just invite random strangers to join that kind of game if you cared that much.
Besides Mario Kart, Smash Bros, PES, Fifa, Madden, Call of Duty, Medal of Honor I dont know if I've missed any games, dont need friend codes to play them online. In my opinion this is just people complaining for nothing.
That just proves how useless they are until it counts. You play against someone and had a really good time or thought they were good, you go to add them... what's the number again? 2558, no wait, umm. 2588? I can't remember.
It's not just about playing, it's about staying connected. You don't introduce yourself via your NI number (or Social Security number for our Stateside friends) IRL so there's no need to impose such a crazy system online.
Everyone keeps complaining about friend codes, I agree it is an annoying concept especially with games like Animal Crossing. But its in place for a reason if for example you were playing AC:City Folk with someone you didnt know and they trashed your town, how angry would you be then. Besides Mario Kart, Smash Bros, PES, Fifa, Madden, Call of Duty, Medal of Honor I dont know if I've missed any games, dont need friend codes to play them online. In my opinion this is just people complaining for nothing.
Like Hobophobik said, its having a different freind code for every single game thats the problem, its just annoying, and it makes the Wii number code useless.
That just proves how useless they are until it counts. You play against someone and had a really good time or thought they were good, you go to add them... what's the number again? 2558, no wait, umm. 2588? I can't remember.
I don't know about those other games, but in Brawl and Mario Kart you can add people without typing in friend codes, if they're a friend of your friend, you can't add randomers though.
I have no problem typing in number codes, its just having to do it for every game that bothers me.
I would say that the money would be better spent elsewhere like investing in some games companies or hiring new internal teams at Nintendo so we can have some more Nintendo games as that is the only reason I own the Wii.
Everyone keeps complaining about friend codes, I agree it is an annoying concept especially with games like Animal Crossing. But its in place for a reason if for example you were playing AC:City Folk with someone you didnt know and they trashed your town, how angry would you be then. Besides Mario Kart, Smash Bros, PES, Fifa, Madden, Call of Duty, Medal of Honor I dont know if I've missed any games, dont need friend codes to play them online. In my opinion this is just people complaining for nothing.
Like Hobophobik said, its having a different freind code for every single game thats the problem, its just annoying, and it makes the Wii number code useless.
I third that. If it was one code per console rather than per game it would be ok. In fact I have been pleasently surprised by the Nintendo Online system as it has always been smooth and relatively lag free. However they do need to add some more features (ie demo downloads etc) and ditch the friend codes on a per game basis.
Echoes of Time has a good system, you use friend codes to register real life friends but you can send ingame friend requests to anyone who happen to play with, I only have four buddies on it right now but I don't actually know three of them.
Echoes of Time has a good system, you use friend codes to register real life friends but you can send ingame friend requests to anyone who happen to play with, I only have four buddies on it right now but I don't actually know three of them.
Well thats a little step forward, more games need to do that, and also support wiiSpeak. This aint releated to online but why don't more games support custom soundtrack play from SD cards?
Yer it was a pleasant surprise to say the least. I was actually wondering that too, it might be because Ninty aren't exactly at the forefront of multimedia(that's Sony's forte). It would be cool for the DSi as well, I want Song Summoner as well.
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