E311 | Nintendo Plans Open Online For Wii U

Gamers are eager to discover what Nintendo have planned for Wii U's online service. Nintendo have not yet shown anything publicly, but both EA and Ubisoft have expressed satisfaction with the plans thus far, with the latter going as far as to develop PC online title Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Online for the new system.

In an interview with GameTrailers, Nintendo spoke vaguely about the network capabilities, indicating that the online will be flexible enough to suit the wants and whims of each publisher.

Online gaming is very important to us, and we've heard the demands, really, of the veteran gamers that want that. So, we're going to be more flexible with gaming this time when it comes to online, we're going to work with our third party partners. We're not going to have a centralised 'one-size-fits-all' type of online gaming approach, it is going to be more the publishers figuring out what they want to do and then we'll try to bring that to life and make sure our platform can support that vision. - Charlie Scibetta, Corporate Communications, Nintendo

What this could mean is open to interpretation. In a worst case scenario, Nintendo may simply not develop a central system in any respect, leaving publishers to form their own infrastructure independent of each other - a perfect solution for the likes of EA and Ubisoft, who both already run their own account-based sub-systems on Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, but potentially a hazardous strategy for smaller developers. On the other hand, Nintendo may opt to create a basic system that can be used by any publisher, including friend lists and the like, while also tying together any sub-systems that publishers may choose to create.

Nintendo have demonstrated steps forward with Nintendo 3DS, with a system-wide Friend Code, friend lists and a more competent online shop service in the eShop, but there is still a way to go before they meet the standards set by Microsoft and Sony.

One thing is for certain - we're not likely to get any official word until Nintendo is ready. Could Wii U pull the Kyoto company's online up to levels similar to their competitors?