While I agree they're behind the times on their consoles re online, I think it's more a software issue. I don't think criticising the hardware functionality is quite fair.

The predecessor to the Wii was the Gamecube which came out in 2001, where few people had broadband internet

The other consoles in that generation were the ps2, xbox, and briefly dreamcast. Of those, only the xbox came with built in networking, until the playstation slim release in 2004. The dreamcast, ps2 and Gamecube all offered additional adapters to provide ethernet (and the dreamcast and Gamecube had dial up modems available too). So the Gamecube was in line with most of the competition.

The Wii had out of the box WiFi (and an adapter for ethernet available) which put it in a similar space to its competitors. Only the ps3 had both WiFi and ethernet out of the box at launch. The 360 only had ethernet until a refresh that added WIFI. And the Wii was also coming in at a significantly lower price point.

[–] IzzyJ 1 points 7 hours ago

Just mild correction, the Dreamcast came with the dialup modem. So while it wasnt as good, it had functional internet for 99 out of the box