Wii U Online Will Be Completely Up to Developers

The online gaming revolution passed Nintendo by this generation, the company did little to foster the development of a Nintendo online footprint and as a result probably lost a lot of interest from a large segment of gamers.  With Nintendo’s Wii U and it’s philosophy of something for everyone, it’s understood that online functionality is something that Nintendo is focusing on with the next generation console.

While it’s likely that nothing is set in stone at this point, some details have slipped about Nintendo’s plans for their online network.  They’ll likely start to gravitate towards a service that is similar to Xbox Live or the PlayStation Network to resonate with the online console gamers of the world.  In a recent interview with Forbes, Reggie Fils-Aime talked about these new online capabilities, and noted that many of the decisions will be left up to developers where Nintendo will allow them to create their own online interfaces to be accessed through the Nintendo Wii U.

“For Wii U, we’re going to take that one step further, and what we’re doing is creating a much more flexible system that will allow the best approaches by independent publishers to come to bear,” Reggie told Forbes in a recent interview. “So instead of a situation where a publisher has their own network and wants that to be the predominant platform, and having arguments with platform holders, we’re going to welcome that. We’re going to welcome that from the best and the brightest of the third party publishers.”

In theory, a infrastructure like Fils-Aime spoke of has a lot of potential for the console.  Developers will be able to update and issue new content for the games more freely, but it could also open the door for paid access to multiplayer content on a per-game basis.  Hopefully, that’s not the road we’re getting ready to travel down.