No online support for 3rd-party Wii devs until 2007

by Joystiq Staff @ on Aug 25th 2006 9:55AM

Buried at the bottom of an IGN preview for the Wii's Tony Hawk's Downhill Jam is the news that not only is this game not going to feature any online component, but every 3rd-party game that comes out for the Wii won't support anything online either. Not until 2007 will publishers be able to offer up Wi-Fi gaming to eager players who picked up a Wii.

Gamers hoping for an online component, however, are in for bad news, because one isn't planned. Activision would not say why, but IGN has separately learned from multiple development sources that Nintendo will not release Wii Wi-Fi Connection libraries to third parties until early 2007, which means that no third party launch title will have an online mode.

Well, that's pretty awful. Seems like a pretty dumb move not to allow your third-party developers to offer online play with your launch titles. Online gaming has arguably become essential for most players and considering your system isn't in high-def or truly next-gen graphics wise, what other incentive besides a different control scheme would a gamer have in picking up your product?

Check after the break for the possible launch titles that would certainly be affected by this.