Rumor: Nintendo Abolishing Wii Friend Codes

Craig Harris, Executive Editor of IGN Nintendo Team, has reportedly heard rumors that Nintendo will be ditching the current friend code system for online play. Instead, Nintendo will only use a single system code.

"I've heard rumors that friend codes are going away. It's going to be a universal system code but its still going to be a code," Harris said in a recent Nintendo Voice Chat podcast.

What about one online identity across both the Wii and DS? Unfortunately Harris believes you're out of luck. "There's no online account, it's just your system has the number", meaning as it stands now there will be no online integration between Wii and DS.

Harris believes the source of this change started with Guitar Hero 5, which utilized your Wii Friend Code to automatically take your address book friends, and add them into your list of Guitar Hero friends. "Guitar Hero definitely drove the idea of system friend codes".

Just when this rumored single system code idea will be implemented remains to be seen. It's unclear at this time whether it will continue to be developer driven, as with Guitar Hero, or as an official announcement from Nintendo.