"I think that his decision on whether or not to include online functionality with New Super Mario Bros. Wii was based on the idea that the true value of that product was going to be determined not by online functionality, but on how compelling and unique the experience would be for two, three or four people to be able to play that game together in the same room. Of course, I have heard commentary that people feel that Nintendo's online functionality is behind the others or is lacking in some ways."
"And I can say that we are not currently satisfied with the online efforts that we have made so far, and we are working at ways to improve those. On the other hand, I do not think that online functionality is something that we should be devoting resources to for every single product."
And there we go, the reason why there was no online mode in NSMBWii. Because Shigsy decided ultimately against it. It's probably also the reason why there wasn't any online mode in Mario Galaxy 2 (even if SMG2 had online it still wouldn't please this retard). On this issue Iwata also said that Nintendo is always considering how to maximize the fun factor of its game with limited resources.
Fine and all (seeing as I didn't really see any point in adding online to everything), but whatever 'online efforts' Nintendo has dabbled in has either been a complete disaster or underwhelming at best (Friend Code system, lack of proper and economical voice chat, Smash Bros. Brawl). If truly Nintendo are doing something to rectify it I'm a happy camper, but for now I'll just link everyone reading this to my Online Fallacy blog post.
