EXHIBIT A
The 3DS has one friend code to rule them all. It works just like an XBox Live or PSN username. You share these codes with your friends and you become part of each others' friend lists. They can see when you are online and what you’re currently playing. The best part is that this friend list is always there. You can access it when you’re playing Resident Evil: Revelations and might even be hoping that someone somewhere is online so you can set up a match in Mario Kart 7.
Yet here I am, playing Mario Tennis Open and I can’t invite anyone to my online match. I can see a friend online and, judging by his avatar, he is a totally cool dude that would play with me, but there is no way whatsoever to get his attention. Not only can I not send a game invite, I can’t message him with the system to tell him to join the tennis match I’ve opened up to friends. I imagine him sitting across the world, playing Super Mario 3D Land and crying, because he really wants to play tennis with real people. With me.
EXHIBIT B
Pikmin 3 does not have online multiplayer. Pikmin 2 had a fantastic two-player battle mode, and 3 will have some multiplayer modes as well. They don't need to be online, and that's fine. However, based on what they've told us, it isn't an offline multiplayer game because that's how they designed it, it's because it apparently "would be difficult." Nintendo actively chose not to implement it.
"But in the situation of Pikmin, for example, since you would have lots of individual, small creatures, the Pikmin, whose every movement and location is going to be really important in the game, it would be very difficult to sync up over an internet connection."
Meanwhile...
"We have hundreds of units moving simultaneously on maps that support eight players online at once."
I’m thankful that Nintendo opted to focus on the aspects of Pikmin 3 they felt they could actually execute with a degree of quality. I'd absolutely prefer a fantastic local-play-only video game that is perfect rather than one with a shoehorned-in online multiplayer mode. Yet, what troubles me is the fact that replicating online features from over ten years ago seems to pose such a challenge to them. There are some really terrible games in existence that have fantastic multiplayer implementation. Nintendo is, somehow, behind budget game developers. If there's no online multi because of game design decisions, say so, but don't feed me this "it would be too hard" crap!
EXHIBIT C
Nintendo doesn’t think it’s important to tell us much of anything about the Wii U’s online interface. Miiverse has been detailed somewhat (and seems really cool), but it’s also not what I need to know. Where is the ability to message my friends and invite them into my games? This is what we need to know. This is what will break their online system. If I can see "tweets" from my friends about an area of a game, but can’t interact with them, then the entire system is a bust. You might as well pack the Wii U up and send it back because it’s not going to compete with anything else out there. Period. Not as a multiplayer machine anyway.
Local multiplayer is a good thing and I’m glad Nintendo still supports it. Pikmin 3 is going to have a local co-op mode, in fact. That’s great news! But this isn’t an either/or scenario, it’s a both/and. I want Nintendo to embrace all kinds of gamers, just like they claim they want to. I want online gamers to be happy, I want local gamers to be happy. I want solo gamers to be able to isolate themselves from the Miiverse and friend messages while they dive deep into the next Zelda. I want casual gamers to not have to jump through a hundred hoops if they want to try out punching a dude through the Internet.
I want Nintendo to be for everyone, not just someone.