Missing StarFox 64 3D multiplayer down to lack of time and money, says Nintendo

We loved StarFox 64 3D. However, with online multiplayer it could have been even better. Nintendo has offered a fairly jumbled explanation as to why it omitted the feature.

Nintendo's Yusuke Amano explained to Official Nintendo Magazine, "Personally, I play a lot of online FPS games. This leads me to think 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."

So it's a matter of making sure it didn't feel tacked-on, and keeping costs down. But wait - there's more. The development time was also an issue.

"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," he said. "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."

However, he did note that, "if I get the chance to work on another StarFox title, I would definitely consider an online multiplayer mode."

Make it happen, Nintendo.