Wii

Games designed to take advantage of Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection offer Internet play integrated into the game. Nintendo emphasizes the simplicity and speed of starting an online game when promoting its service. For example, in Mario Kart DS, an online game is initiated by first choosing the online multiplayer option from the main menu, then choosing whether to play with friends, play with people at the same skill level, play with people in the local region, or play with people around the world. After a selection is made, the game starts searching for available players. The Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection service for Nintendo DS can support up to eight players, e.g., Clubhouse Games. The Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection service for Wii can support up to thirty-two players, however some games use other online services.At the 2008 Game Developers Conference, Nintendo announced that while the Wi-Fi Connection will remain a free service, there are plans for additional services that will have to be paid for. The company is taking great pains to ensure that game players will not be misled into thinking that a WFC enabled game will be entirely free to play. Games with such premium features will include the standard WFC mark along with an additional mark indicating that there are additional services that will need to be paid for.”Friend codes” are generated from an identifier unique to a copy of a game and the Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection ID of a DS or Wii system. Using a different copy of a game, or loading the same copy in a different system, generates a different Friend code.In order for users to become “Friends”, they must mutually add Friend codes, often obtained through online forums or chatrooms, and will be authenticated as Friends once both have gone online. These measures (mutual Friend code exchange, per-game Friend codes, and the pairing of the Friend code and system) are said by Nintendo to be conscious steps to preserve users’ privacy. If a DS or Wii game is sold, but not the system, there is no risk of the purchaser impersonating the seller. Similarly, one cannot add a user to their “Friends list” for the sole purpose of antagonizing the user online.Features enabled by becoming “Friends” can range from simply seeking each other out for online play (Mario Kart DS, Tetris DS), to voice and text chat (Metroid Prime Hunters). Unusually, most of the online features in Animal Crossing: Wild World are disabled unless users are Friends, with some exceptions, primarily due to the potential for vandalism of another user’s personalized “Town” in the game.Friend codes are twelve digits long. Codes for certain games, such as Mario Kart DS and Tetris DS, are six digits followed by another row of six digits, while other games like Animal Crossing use codes with three groups of four digits separated by hyphens. If a user needs to replace his or her DS system, then the old system’s Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection ID can be transferred wirelessly, to maintain the user’s original Friend codes on the new machine.