Is Nintendo Wii online broken?

In short, yes. Internet play should be easy without sacrificing security. I loathe the fact that friends have to both manually enter in a very long console number before communicating. I realize the service is to protect against unwanted spam, annoying folk, and most importantly pedophilia, but there must be an easier way.

It would have been better to use a more easy to remember “gamertag” alias than the long beast of a number. And why not use a friend acceptance/rejection system? At least give us a simple profile browsing feature to encourage community. But unless Nintendo provides a firmware update, I’m afraid the console will never be able to hang with the “big boys” online. That’s a big sell for hard-cores.

Could this glass in anyway be half full?