The one yearned-for feature that was absent in the Playstation 3 edition of Virtua Fighter 5 was online brawling. Upon hearing that the Xbox 360 version of the critically acclaimed fighter would include the aforementioned mode, many who had purchased the game back in March for Sony’s console were tempted to punch down the nearest wall with the fury of Akira after a bad hair day.
Well, it seems that the revered AM2 (the Sega owned developer responsible for all things Virtua Fighter and Shenmue among others) is quite capable of flipping those frowns upside down.
"In the case of PlayStation 3, our first priority was to convert Virtua Fighter 5 from the arcade onto [the system] as soon as possible," said Tohru Murayama (assistant manager of the studio) in an interview with Total Video Games. "To achieve that purpose we had to give up the development of the online mode – we’d love to try if there was time and the budget but unfortunately, we had to give up on that idea. AM2 are sorry to PS3 users – a lot of people say that it’is one of the missing things from the version."
When asked whether or not a patch could enable PS3 users to take on opponents from around the globe, the simple response was, "No doubt."
However, his comments don’t necessarily mean that it’s going to happen. From a business perspective, in what way would it benefit Sega to grant the studio the time to make online functionality on the PS3 version a reality when they could be working on another project that could potentially yield more revenue for the company?
In any case, Sega hasn’t announced anything yet regarding the matter of PS3 owners beating down their buddies over the ‘net. When (and if) they do, GamerNode will inform its much adored readers.
[Via 1UP.com]
