YES.
YES.
YEEEEEEES.
They've confirmed Wifi play with Smash Bros Dojo's 100th site update, FANTASTIC!
They've even done it in the best ways possible to compensate for the friendcode system!
For one, you can add friends through the usual 12 digit system, no complaints here.
In addition to that, you can set a username and icon to display, as well as a little message and some pre-set taunt messages, very nice.
As for playing against random people, you won't know who you're playing again which makes things interesting, will you play a total pro or a beginner? People won't disconnect just because you have a brilliant win record either, since there isn't one. (When I played Mario Kart DS a lot, I had 392 wins and 9 losses, no joke.)
I imagine the anonymity thing also helps one other thing that Sakurai pointed out: Increased distances between players causes lag which can't be avoided. If playing against random people, i'd be more concerned about kicking their ass rather than who they are and talking to them during the match.
All in all, this is going to be the best smash bros ever, I can say this from personal experience too actually! You see, using emulators and such, you can play Super Smash Bros 64 on the PC and even play it ONLINE with other people, with the right equipment. I've done it a number of times with my friends and it's so damn fun. (The only problem is that everyone on the server I was playing with were absolute pros.)
So yeah, I am SO looking forward to this now, although I still hope that Lucario gets into Brawl, since I still think he could be a great figher.
And hey, you get to beat the shit out of sand bag whilst you wait, which is awesome since you do get bored waiting for that Mario Kart wifi waiting process. ;)
WillieCorley
I absolutely hate today's update. In fact, I would even call it the website's worst update yet. Because of the way the game is set up, there's pretty much no way that game can have a real community.
I hate how random people won't be able to know my user name nor will they be able to say anything to me. When I play with random people, I like having the option of being able to communicate with them. Even though they haven't confirmed if headset support will be in the game, I doubt it'll be in it considering how they have obnoxious text bubbles as a way to communicate with friends.
It's like Nintendo is trying their damnedest to appeal towards parents. The Wii has parental controls for a reason. If a parent is worried about their child talking with strangers, they should be able to set up the parental controls to not allow their kids to have that ability. That way, everyone is happy.
IGN even took a poll asking if gamers wanted headset and voice chat for Wii's online games. Over 98% of the voters said yes. That right there should be enough of a reason to include headset support in Brawl.
This sad news doesn't mean I won't play Brawl's online mode. A bunch of users from a different community that was formed on a different video game will all probably share friend codes and communicate through our PS2s as we play Brawl. I find that fucking sad how a lot of people will probably do that just because Nintendo is stubborn. Maybe the Wii is just too successful for them. They had to fuck something up.
RupeeClock
Get over it, so you can't communicate with the people, you couldn't in Mario Kart DS either and it never bothered a lot of people.
Besides, you know how voice chat would rape the bandwidth and cause lag? You have no fucking idea how wifi works.
I personally like the anonymity since I can just fight people.