While listening to 1UP’s excellent Listen Up podcast the other day, the panelists made an a fascinating point concerning the iPhone’s online gaming infrastructure. One of them noted that the iPhone doesn’t need an

equivalent of Xbox Live or PSN because individual games can leverage the likes of Facebook and Twitter to facilitate the development of communities. A number of games recently released are taking advantage, by enabling users to post their high scores to Facebook or Twitter and issue challenges to other friends playing the same game.

All well and good. What really interested me was that they suggested that Nintendo should take heed here.

Anyone who’s tried to play an online game on Wii or DS knows that the almost universal lack of voice (and usually text) chat means that too often, the only difference between playing online and against an AI player is that the online mode usually features lag. Not fun.

Nintendo have demonstrated that they have no interest in taking on Xbox Live or PSN by developing an extensive, feature-packed service for online gaming. It seems to me that encouraging developers to incorporate social networking features into their online infrastructure would be a simple measure for the big N to adopt- a halfway house between the current bare-bones Wi-Fi Connection ’service’ and something more sustantial, while still remaining distinctive. It also gives Nintendo a chance to start to leverage their huge user bases in a more online-friendly way.

Given Facebook’s good security and friend-only accessibility, It’s also entirely in keeping with Nintendo’s freakishly obsessive desire to prevent paedophiles and other undesirables from interrupting little Johnny’s Animal Crossing session.

Come on Nintendo, you know this makes perfect sense.