Miyamoto on lack of online support in New Super Mario Bros. Wii

November 14th, 2009 Posted in News, Posted by Valay, Wii

At E3 this year, Shigeru Miyamoto told reporters at a roundtable event that there would be no online support for New Super Mario Bros. Wii because the game uses all of the console’s processing power. But apparently there’s more to it. On the Nintendo Channel, there is an interview with Miyamoto and he once again talked about the lack of online play. Apparently Nintendo concentrated on local multiplayer only because “it’s more fun if you can see the face of the other people you are playing with.”

“Naturally, Nintendo uses the Internet now and with Super Smash Bros. Brawl we had a game you can play with other people, wherever they are. There will probably be people asking why we didn’t do that with this game as well. Well I think it’s more fun if you can see the face of the other people you are playing with, which is why we concentrated on this design this time.”


  1. 18 Responses to “Miyamoto on lack of online support in New Super Mario Bros. Wii”

  2. By bob on Nov 14, 2009

    i wish there was onkline

  3. By practicing01 on Nov 14, 2009

    Any excuses made for lack of online multiplayer are invalid. PC games have had online multiplayer since the internet was concieved (MUD’s). Hell, I’m an amateur hobbiest game programmer and have managed to code lan multiplayer with the zoidcom library. No excuses Nintendo ;) !

  4. By Maxo on Nov 14, 2009

    Or that the wii system’s online servers sucks

  5. By Jared on Nov 14, 2009

    Kind of a lame excuse.

    But I think online would suck in this game anyway, because the gameplay is so precise and if there were lag people would be dying and whatnot.

  6. By tylor on Nov 14, 2009

    when i think of a similar game like Little Big Planet which has outstanding online support allowing for multiple users to play the same level simultaneously, Nintendo’s excuse seems REALLY hollow.

  7. By Gavin on Nov 14, 2009

    It would have been a bit more acceptable if they at least made it online with friends only… or even some online leaderboards for completion times, scores etc. Wii Sports Resort badly needed some leaderboards, even offline ones would’ve been something!

    Oh well, to be honest I dislike online multiplayer. I’m just considering other people.

  8. By Thomas N on Nov 14, 2009

    Unfortunately, many spoiled, younger gamers will ignore the reason why Mr. Miyamoto wanted local multi-player instead of online. Since New Super Mario Bros. Wii represents his vision, it should be respected. It seems to me that the criticism of a lack of online for this game may reflect a cultural difference between invididualistic Westerners and family/group-oriented Japanese.

  9. By hehe1 on Nov 14, 2009

    In ssbb at least u had the option of playing with other people while in this one u don’t even have the option the saddest thing is that if i’m in Canada and somebody is in asia how is he going to come over just to play a game smbw and almost in all games u’d rather have people playing with face to face but the option of playing with other people who live far away should also be its like super mario kart wii’s online they’ve just given up on online altogether

  10. By Gavin on Nov 14, 2009

    Remember, Miyamoto said just after E3 that the game is pushing the Wii to it’s limit, so online wasn’t possible. As I said, I care not for online multiplayer, but perhaps his reasoning is more a cover up than it is his vision.

  11. By Oni2382 on Nov 14, 2009

    This is BS, he needs to realize that their are adults who play this who no longer have the luxery of people coming over do to having a LIFE to play local multiplayer. I would rather have people over myself but when your married, have a career or whatever it’s REALLY hard to pull that off which is why online multiplayer is so popular. And to the user who said this game is precise, please Virtua Fighter 5 is an EXTREMELY precise game and it has near flawless online support please stop making excuses for Nintendo I plan on getting this game but they need to step up.

  12. By SomeGuy on Nov 14, 2009

    @hehe1

    You are not allowed to be on the internet until you learn to put periods at the end of your sentences. Reading your post gave me a headache. Cut it out.

  13. By Kory on Nov 14, 2009

    @ Thomas N

    Reasoning that we need to respect Miyamoto’s “vision” insinuates that critiquing anything is wrong. Think of a horrible movie or television show, one that just really misses major benchmarks in production value and even congruency. Couldn’t the director simply say all that was missing, all that was sub-par, was simply a part of his greater vision?

    The point is this; Miaymoto can have his vision, and we can have the right to disagree. Yup, even us horrible, individualistic foreigners.

  14. By Kisama on Nov 14, 2009

    Online in this kind of game doesn’t matter to me, but just because you think people should play “face to face” doesn’t mean everyone agrees. They are the developers but whatever.

  15. By supagcn on Nov 15, 2009

    i’ve played this game for quite awhile now and i must agree with Mr Miyamoto, it is absolutely fantastic local multiplayer, thank you Nintendo

  16. By kamanashi on Nov 15, 2009

    If this game uses all the Wii processing power, they may need to get a new programmer.

    Either way though, I like the game even without online.

  17. By Stephen on Nov 15, 2009

    Looking forward to getting this game

  18. By IronROB on Nov 16, 2009

    This lame excuse is as just as stupid as that Non-playable Peach excuse.

    But of course, Miyamoto making excuses like this is nothing new so why do I complain?

  19. By Judy Smith on Nov 16, 2009

    Finally they bring back Super Mario Brother’s it’s crazy I needed this yea yea finally…

Post a Comment