While Nintendo may be making an effort to expand its efforts into online gaming, it appears that Pikmin 3 will not aid in helping the cause. That's right, oddly enough, Captain Olimar's latest outing will not support online multiplayer; however, the game will support local cooperative play.
Are you kidding me?! Nintendo, what are you thinking? If any upcoming launch game would be perfect for online multiplayer, it's Pikmin. Your foolish decisions never cease to amaze me.
In an interview with IGN, Shigeru Miyamoto broke the dumbfounding news, saying, “You have to be very careful that you don’t drop frames as you’re trying to sync up with other players over what could be a very great physical distance, over the internet. But in the situation of Pikmin, for example, since you would have lots of individual, small creatures, the Pikmin, whose every movement and location is going to be really important in the game, it would be very difficult to sync up over an internet connection."
Granted, Nintendo is still pretty new to the whole online gaming space, but man, it sure would be nice to be able to play online with friends. Instead, the development team has been pouring all of its efforts into making the single-player and local co-op experiences the best they possibly can. “So I think what we’ve decided to do is focus on the single-player and local multiplayer aspects, which are really fun. But unfortunately, no online multiplayer for Pikmin 3. But the co-op local multiplayer is really fun,” Miyamoto said.
Cool bro, but it doesn't change the fact that I have to physically be in the same room with someone if I want to play with a friend.