See? Now this is the kind of good stuff we love hearing come out of the Nintendo camp. NOA president Reggie Fils-Aime stated in a recent interview that online play on Wii will cost the same price that it costs on the Nintendo DS - that would be, free! No hidden costs, no subscription fees. See for yourself:

Q: How do you extend your online strategy to Wii?

A: It’s the same premise. We will offer online-enabled games that the consumers will not have to pay a subscription fee for. They’ll be able to enjoy that right out of the box. The Wii console is going to be Wi-Fi enabled, so essentially, you’ll be able to plug it in and go. It won’t have hidden fees or costs.

While that has us wetting our pants with glee (something we don’t do ever all that often,) we have to wonder if the Wii Connect24 service will be as generic as the Nintendo DS WiFi Connection is. No usernames, leaderboards, etc. Just silly Friend Codes. Nintendo - if you are going to jump in to online play, please do it up right.