Not trying to defend Nintendo or anything.
"Super Mario 3D World Excludes Online Multiplayer" is not news. No one ever said Super Mario 3D World would include online multiplayer, if they announced they were going to and later changed their mind then it would be news. Also, previous 3D Mario titles didn't have online multiplayer so it's not like it was a consense that this specific title would. Also the title of the news is wrong, it would be "Super Mario 3D World doesn't include Online Multiplayer", because you can only exclude something that was already included in the first place.
So this "news" basically say "a video game will not have a feature that no one announced it would have in the first place". Can you imagine if everytime an AAA game didn't have a Time Trial mode someone posted something like "New CoD won't have trial mode"? For me this kind of thing only serves to feed fanboyish discussions...