Why Star Fox 64 3D has no online multiplayer

While everybody is almost universally fond of Star Fox 64 3D, a common complaint - even among fans - is that the game does not feature online multiplayer. According to Nintendo, you can blame cost and time restraints for that one.

Yusuke Amano, chatting to Official Nintendo Magazine, explains that "Just making multiplayer parts of existing games playable online isn't enough to create a satisfying experience for users. The popular online games work in lots of things, so they play well online - and if we wanted to satisfy everyone who bought the game, the costs required for including online support would be vast."

What he means is - simply sticking online multiplayer into the game without making any other changes simply wouldn't work. Things needed to be changed, tweaked and adjusted - and the team simply didn't have the time.

"For this project what we needed to do was use Star Fox to provide users with a game that shows the appeal of Nintendo 3DS as quickly as possible," explains Amano. "We put a lot of effort into the graphics, and if we had included online support then we couldn't have reached this level in the time allowed."

As reported by Shacknews, the development team was under significant pressure, given the struggling 3DS market, and the blame being placed squarely on "lack of games".

Hopefully things have relaxed a little over at Nintendo HQ, as both Super Mario 3D Land and Mario Kart 7 are headed to the new handheld in the next few months, and gamers have some pretty steep expectations.