Could the Wii U's online system actually be worse than the Wii's?

We are all pumped for Nintendo to move into the current times, having an HD-capable system and finally a decent online system! That's are what they are having, right, a decent online system. After all, Reggie promised us the end of friend codes! But wait, did he or anyone else at Nintendo even say anything else definitive about what the system would be like and how it would work? There's actually a very telling and potentially disturbing quote from Reggie himself here:

"...instead of a situation where a publisher has their own network and wants that to be the predominant platform, and having arguments with platform holders, we’re going to welcome that. We’re going to welcome that from the best and the brightest of the third party publishers".

Now, to me that sounds like they are just going to let developers and publishers try and set up their own network rather than have one standard universal setup like the 360 & PS3 have. Just think about that for a second. At a bare minimum you might need a username & password & friends list for nearly every major publisher out there, not a promising prospect at all. It also sounds like they might half-ass it at best with their own titles that could greatly benefit online. Nintendo has a ton of unique franchises that could provide experiences you couldn't get anywhere else in an online setting. Smash Bros. is the most obvious, but New Super Mario Bros, Wii Sports, Metroid, Pikmin and even Zelda (think 4 swords online) all have strong possibilities that could make Nintendo's online network the one to beat, and all it would really need is a competent setup. Easy to find and make friends, leaderboards, etc. Instead it sounds like we might very well be getting something that is actually far worse than friend codes ever were, and that's if publishers even bother. After all, setting up and maintaining servers ain't cheap, and I can't think of anybody who would go through this trouble just to play a few games...

That is all for today, I should have another post up by Tuesday. Until then, here's your BIG BANG CLIP OF THE WEEK: