Nintendo Wii Online Service to use Friend Codes? Sunday, July 23 2006
It sounds like some enterprising folks found a few unreleased pages on Nintendo's website last week. They were quickly pulled, but according to this post from Kotaku (and many others), the WiFi pages stated that Wii would use Friend Codes (likely just as the Nintendo DS does).
To quote Wikipedia:
"Friend codes are "addresses" assigned to every player that uses Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection. The codes are usually assigned one per player, per game; the codes allow a player to store a list of friends with the same game and play with them when both parties are online. The codes come in different formats for different games. For example, the codes of Mario Kart DS and Tetris DS are six digits followed by another row of six digits, while Animal Crossing: Wild World's codes comprise three groups of four digits separated by hyphens. Friend codes in Mario Kart DS and Tony Hawk's American Sk8land allow the player to search for opponents that are in their friend list and are also searching for a match against "friends" with the same game. In Animal Crossing: Wild World, friend codes are absolutely required to visit another’s town via the Wi-Fi connection, perhaps due to Nintendo’s privacy concerns or the potential in-game vandalism that could occur from unauthorized visitors to the player's town. Adding a friend can also allow text and/or voice chat, as in the case of Metroid Prime: Hunters and Animal Crossing: Wild World. In "Animal Crossing Wild World", every Wi-Fi users codes of which you obtain, are stored in your "Friend Roster" so you can keep a record of whose town you visit."
I'm mildly disappointed by the news because the Friend Code concept doesn't do much to build community. Unless the implementation is changed, you're basically restricted to playing with only people you know who you have exchanged codes with. Now, I'll be the first to admit that the majority of time I choose to play with my friends anyway - I just don't have as much time to play as I might like, and when I do I usually try to spend time with them. So for me (and maybe many others), this may not be a big deal. But with Friend Codes you seem to lose out on the opportunity to meet new random people online (which I also admit may be a benefit at times!) Probably worse in my mind is that I'll miss the ability to personalize myself online. I'm "Ozymandias", not a string of digits. <sigh>
All that said, I also understand why Nintendo is going in this direction. The company has always had a strong history of being family-friendly, and concepts like Friend Codes fit right in this vein. It also makes building an online network a lot simplier, especially one which they want to provide to consumers without additional charge. So while I might personally prefer a more robust online service like Xbox Live, I think this is a great first step for Nintendo as they dip their toe into the online waters for the first time with a home console. However, I also wouldn't be surprised if something like "nicknames" comes along in the near future to allow you to better personalize your online presence. Let the landrush begin! 
hey ozy, nice to see your posting stuff on other consoles ;)
THis is good and bad news... although I'm glad to see 'friends' on the wii, I'm abit concerned abot the lack of random friends. As I'm prob the only one of my real friends to buy this wheb this comes out... ill be kinda lonely. lol no worries, ill send you a friend request (if that's what they're called)