More details about the Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection from former GameSpy general manager

During IGN’s latest Nintendo Voice Chat podcast, former GameSpy Technology general manager Todd Northcutt was brought in to discuss some of the behind the scenes details about the service and the company’s relationship with Nintendo. For those unaware, GameSpy provided the back-end infrastructure for Wii/DS games.

We brought you just a few of these details on Friday. Now you can find a more comprehensive summary below.

– Things started at the end of 2004/beginning of 2005
– A few months later, a few people from Nintendo came to the GameSpy office and went through the many different technologies
– This was very in-depth and more detailed than GameSpy would have done with another potential customer
– Came together really quickly
– A lot of time spent back and forth between the GameSpy team, Nintendo of America, Nintendo in Japan
– GameSpy ultimately went to Kyoto twice a year for the next 5 years as they deepend the partnership
– Tony Hawk was the first game GameSpy worked on
– Spent more time on this one than Mario Kart DS
– After that was Animal Crossing
– There was no patching functionality at all, so anything wrong with the game GameSpy had to fix on the backend
– Games like Mario Kart Wii, Smash Bros., Monster Hunter were toe-to-toe with some of the biggest franchises like Battlefield GameSpy supported in terms of concurrent users during the evening
– In 2007/2008, GameSpy had a meeting with Nintendo; one group responsible for the Wi-Fi connect program and all of the different game teams
– GameSpy was in the middle and was a bridge between the two sides
– One of the very first things said during the meeting by one of the designers on Mario Kart said he wanted to have one code between all of his games and wanted to see what the other person is playing, send invites, etc.
– GameSpy said they support all of these things and hundreds of other games support these features
– Awkward silence for a minute; then the two Nintendo sides yelled at each other in Japanese for about 10 minutes while GameSpy just sat there
– After that, the translator said, “Okay yes, they understand. Thank you.”
– With Animal Crossing voice chat, Nintendo rolled that out all on its own
– GameSpy had a couple of conversations about voice chat in which Nintendo talked about making your DS into a phone
– Nintendo seemed to suggest having voice always on when connected to the Wi-Fi Connection, which would let you talk to your friends at any time
– This terrified GameSpy in terms of the scale needed to make something like that possible
– With Monster Hunter, GameSpy had as many matchmaking servers for that one game as for every other game combined (just the Japanese version)
– GameSpy had no direct communication with Capcom for Monster Hunter
– When the game came out, things started melting down and GameSpy was borrowing servers from anyone they could while new ones were being built
– GameSpy had to import a copy of Monster Hunter and no one in the office spoke Japanese
– Once GameSpy figured things out, they were able to fix the situation
– Smash Bros. was apparently improperly done and patching wasn’t possible, so they could only fix it on the backend
– After Wii, conversations continued a bit about 3DS
– Nintendo was still very secretive about everything even though they worked very closely
– Nintendo would give hints/clues, but wouldn’t say anything too explicit until it was announced broadly
– Eventually Nintendo called to tell GameSpy that their relationship would be ending
– Another random note: GameSpy had no idea about the Wiimote before it was revealed