Nintendo, long known for a conservative, cautious approach to connected gaming, red-lined its online engines for the worldwide release of Mario Kart Wii in April 2008. The title made prodigious use of GameSpy’s “connected gaming” technology – standard for all Wii titles – and emerged as one of Nintendo’s biggest sales successes ever.

From Green Light to Checkered Flag
Marking the Mario Kart franchise’s first appearance on Nintendo’s wildly successful Wii platform, this new installment made extensive use of the console’s “always on” internet connection to provide players with a far richer gaming experience than its predecessor. And, with an innovative use of GameSpy’s technology and services, Mario Kart leveraged this connectivity to extend its rich experience to all types of Mario Kart player – from casual users interested only in offline play, to more hardcore racers returning to the franchise with one foot on the pedal and one eye on the vast field of multiplayer competitors awaiting them online.

This approach earned the title record-setting sales success and an enduring audience of players who continue to play the game in large numbers months after its initial release. On launch day, Mario Kart Wii sold twice as many copies as its predecessor in Japan, and according to the NPD Group (which tracks retail sales of video games), became the second-best-selling game worldwide for April, just behind Grand Theft Auto IV on the Xbox 360. By September 2008, NPD charted that the game had sold 9.53 million copies worldwide.

This audience has proven itself dedicated and loyal. MTV’s Multiplayer Blog uses the Wii’s Nintendo Channel to report that the game currently sees:

• An average of 25 hours, 47 minutes time played per player, per week
• An average 14.61 online sessions per player, per week
• The 6th highest audience of any online enabled Wii title among the 1.3 million users who opt into reporting online gameplay data to Nintendo
• Most telling, these numbers are actually increasing week over week – months after the game hit shelves.

(It’s worth noting the that the #1 most played Wii title online is Nintendo’s Super Smash Bros. Brawl, which also made extensive and innovative use of GameSpy Technology.)

Multiplayer Mayhem
Basic multiplayer matchmaking provided Mario Kart Wii with its most obvious – and most anticipated – online feature.  Powered by GameSpy’s matchmaking technology, this enabled rabid Mario Kart players to do what they’ve always longed to do: take their racing skills online, competing with up to 11 other competitors from around the world.  The popularity of the feature pushed traffic over GameSpy’s highly scalable master servers to historic highs – with nary a blip to uptime or latency.

Nintendo chose not to stop there, however. They shifted Mario Kart Wii into high gear by refining the game’s matchmaking process to produce a better experience for players:

*Ranked / skill-based matchmaking: players opting for “quick match” races found themselves matched against competitors of like skill / ability, ensuring that casual players rarely, if ever, found themselves getting owned by the Andretti’s of the Mario Kart world. Professionals raced against other pros.  Similar rank-based matchmaking can be facilitated by incorporating GameSpy’s ATLAS player stats & competition services into a game alongside matchmaking.

*Seamless connectivity & hosting: Nintendo used GameSpy’s NAT Negotiation services to ensure that players could connect to one another online, no matter the complexities of their home network configurations.

*Friend based multiplayer – for users seeking to throw down against their buddies, Nintendo provided a method setting up buddy-based races via its friend code system.  GameSpy’s Comrade (presence & messaging) technology can provide similar (if not superior) buddy-based matchmaking for games on any platform.

Ghost Riders
Mario Kart Wii’s “Ghost Race” feature introduced the game’s most innovative use of GameSpy services.  For this feature, Nintendo used GameSpy’s Sake cloud data storage solution to enable players to record and upload a record of their best time on any track in the game.  Other players, looking to measure their skills against the game’s best-of-the-best, could then download these races from inside the game and race against the other player’s “ghost” – virtually racing against the other user for the best time.

Ghost racing actually revealed itself to be several features in one: a valuable tool for dedicated players to study other racers and improve their skills; a totally novel take on the “user-created content” concept; and a totally new form of online competition.

Graphic Competition
Typically a competition-averse developer, Nintendo breached the barrier by integrating leaderboards into Mario Kart Wii – but did so in their own inimitable fashion, placing a high premium keeping the game fun and welcoming to all.

Powered by GameSpy’s ATLAS stats & competition service, the Mario Kart Wii leaderboards incorporate users’ customized Miis to display player ranking visually as a trailing crowd set against a looming global backdrop.  No “#1” … just a long collection of avatars attending a global racing party.

This provided a powerful lesson in data presentation and competition: rankings need not fall into formulaic presentation formats, and they need not present the concept of competition as a cold, context-less list of anonymous players.  Instead, it can be fun, warm and welcoming. But what else would you expect from Nintendo?