The upcoming Wii U platformer Super Mario 3D World, like many other Nintendo games, won’t have online multiplayer. If you want to play with other people, you’ll have to do it in the same room.
Well, I guess one person could grab the Wii U GamePad and move to another room, but you see what I’m saying.
This is an interesting decision, and it’s something that the folks at Nintendo have discussed before. Earlier this year, Nintendo top man Shigeru Miyamoto cited latency as one of the reasons they hadn’t added online multiplayer to Pikmin 3. They were much more interested in making multiplayer that people could play on a couch together, Miyamoto said.
So during a video interview at Nintendo’s NYC-based HQ earlier this week, I asked Miyamoto if he had changed his mind at all for Super Mario 3D World, which comes out on November 22. Would he ever consider adding online multiplayer to a Mario game?
“While online play is certainly technically possible for us, it simply wasn’t the focus for us this time around,” Miyamoto said. “What we really wanted to do was to create something that people could experience fully while playing comfortably with others who were nearby them, and this is something we decided would be best for Pikmin and the best case for Mario here as well.
“Now that is to say the answer to this question might change in 10 years time, if there’s a future game where for example we don’t think it’s important to be able to see the face of the person you’re playing with, then we might be able to focus more on some online function there. But for right now our focus is really on a comfortable play experience with people in the same room.”
Granted, Nintendo has made games with online multiplayer before: both Mario Kart 7 and Super Smash Bros. Brawl let you play online with other people. But it seems like co-op Mario platforming will stay in your living room for the foreseeable future.
Comments
9 responses to “Miyamoto: Online Multiplayer Isn’t Nintendo’s Focus This Time Around”
Nintendos just seeming more and more behind the times lately…
I don’t know why people even still ask this question. Not every multiplayer game should have online multiplayer, I can’t imagine having half as much fun as I do in Mario Party or NSMBU for example if I were playing with people online.
You could say that of any game though. LAN’ing with friends is always more fun then playing games online but in this day and age there really isn’t much excuse not to include online as an option. Especially now that voice-chat runs well while playing games most of the time too so even online gaming ‘with friends’ isn’t a huge step down from sitting in the same room.
Come on guys, at least give us both options so we can make the choice.
Yeah I hate it when a game only gives you online multiplayer at the expense of local.
Whilst it would be neat to have the option to play online with others, I for one don’t care for it at all. If adding online MP would add considerable time to development and possibly delay/extend the release date I would rather not have it. That being said, I guess if the demand was there for it, why not add it later in a patch?
Also, I believe unless you were playing online with mates, playing with strangers could be annoying depending on your play style. And, how many people actually have a Wii U? None of my friends do, and I don’t care to play with strangers so I’ll take the couch co-op with my fiance over online MP any day.
Focusing on other features instead of ‘needing’ shoe-horned online?
Fair enough.
EDIT: After a second read of the article it seems the comment from Miyamoto is specifically towards multiplayer in Mario platformers. So I’m more or less withdrawing my comment.
This time around? Was there another time around when online multiplayer has been for Nintendo
http://img.pandawhale.com/31849-why-dont-we-have-both-gif-meme-IfmC.gif