Ubisoft Confirms XBox Live-like Accounts for Wii U

Yesterday evening in an interview with MTV Multiplayer, a representive of Ubisoft confirmed that WiiU will have individual accounts a la XBox Live’s Gamertags.

There’s a few things on that. The first is the ability for individuals to make accounts. Rather than a machine having an account, each individual user has an account.”

So I asked him, “Equivilent to a gamertag on Xbox Live?” “Yeah, exactly,” he said.

Continuing:

He continued, saying that friend codes are no longer required for adding friends:

“Also the ability to easily find friends. Rather than using friend codes, which we’ve had in the past, we’re able to connect players in a much easier way, which allows us to have a community that’s playing together in the game.”

If true, this will be an enormous step for Nintendo’s online market. Friend Codes have been an huge handicap on Nintendo’s online capabilities ever since the DS was first released. With the removal of Friend Codes it opens the door to adding friends only by nicknames, messaging, and so much more. This certainly will help bring more seasoned gamers over to the Wii U that have been holding off because of Friend Codes.

Although Ubisoft seemed reluctant to comment on this during the Third Party Roundtable yesterday night, this representative seems very confident about his words. I am willing to believe them because without this feature I do not believe Third Party devs would be as interested in the Wii U as they are currently. Here’s to hoping we hear something from Nintendo themselves in the near future!