ModNation Racers Vita dev "looking at" online head-to-head patch
But claims mode was barely used in PSP version.
ModNation Racers: Road Trip studio Sony San Diego is "looking at" adding an online head-to-head mode to the game following fan outcry at news the game will ship without one.
Game director Erich Waas took to the comments thread on the original PlayStation Blog post that fueled the controversy yesterday, offering further explanation as to why his team had decided not to include online head-to-head play.
Waas argued that the percentage of gamers who used the head-to-head mode in the PSP version of the game was in single digits, hence the decision to cut it.
"It's great to see people passionate about ModNation Racers: Road Trip," he wrote.
"As a gamer, if I saw a game I was looking forward to playing didn't have a feature I wanted, I'd be bummed too.
"I didn't expect everyone to read the blog and agree with me or for the blog to smooth over strong feelings on the matter. My intent was to explain the position the development team took when designing the feature set.
"A couple of you have mentioned that MNR PSP had online play and this is of course true," he continued. "But part of the decision to not include MNR:RT at launch was that the percentage of MNR PSP gamers who played online. The percentage was in the single digits.
"I imagine if we said MNR PSP didn't have online head-to-head prior to its launch, the reaction would be the same. But in the end, not many actually played online head-to-head."
Waas then added that Sony San Diego is looking at adding in online head-to-head play via a post-launch patch.
"All this said, the development team is looking at online head-to-head in a patch. This wouldn't be available day-1 of the PlayStation Vita launch but it is indeed something being researched as I type this."
An additional post from Waas suggested that the decision to leave the mode out was also a result of a tight development schedule.
"Our choice for the launch was more about what features the team could implement within the development schedule and what online usage patterns we'd seen with our own MNR PSP title as well as other games to date.
"It's not that we don't think head-to-head is a good feature - we do! We felt that the asynchronous features would be used by a bigger portion of the game's demographic."