Nintendo Admits Wii Online Features Weren't Great, Won't Make Same Mistake

Nintendo boss Satoru Iwata has admitted to investors that the online services and connectivity of the Wii home console weren't exactly the best, attributing this fact to Nintendo wanting to work on such features by itself, without any outside help.

The Nintendo Wii was a phenomenal success, drawing many gamers, both hardcore and casual ones, to it through many features. Online multiplayer, sadly, wasn't among them, as the system put in place by Nintendo, requiring people to type in long friend codes every time they wanted to play with someone, made things extremely complicated.

Nintendo President Satoru Iwata has recently admitted to investors that the company made mistakes when developing the online component of the Wii.

"In the field of networks in particular, however, I admit that we cannot do business in pace with the changes in the world and the requests from consumers only within our company and with development companies we have long been in touch with," said Iwata, humbly.

The Nintendo executive goes on, saying that if the online strategy was improved, the Wii could have been an even bigger success, given the growing importance of this aspect in games today.

"Wii's future could have been different if Nintendo had made better partnerships with outside companies in the field of network services at the early stages of the penetration of Wii. Although we have already put ourselves back on track, we would like to clearly differentiate what is our true strength from what we can basically do by ourselves but can be done better by more skillful outside specialists in order not to fall into that trap again."

Things are going to be different moving on, with the new 3DS showing a much more streamlined multiplayer component, while the recently confirmed Wii successor, which is set to be unveiled at E3, will also feature an improved online mode.

Iwata didn't go into details, however, so fans are going to have to wait and see the new Wii model at E3 this summer.