SEGA’s Sonic Boom Wii U Will Not Feature Online Multiplayer Experience

Nintendo fan website Nintendo World Report recently spoke to SEGA producer Stephen Frost about the Wii U version of Sonic Boom. Stephen shared a few details about Sonic’s new upcoming title — which is also being developer for the Nintendo 3DS — and we’ve consolidated the details below. One highlight that fans may be disappointed with is that Sonic Boom will not feature online multiplayer.

Here’s the rest of the details:

more details coming during E3 2014 this June
CryEngine 3 technology used for development
The Enerbeam (bungee-like weapon) is related to the storyline
Characters can be selected on the fly during gameplay
Other characters likely to be playable
Frame rate is “very very solid”
No online multiplayer; living room experience focused

[pootymcpoockle]

And? I hate this modern trope in the gaming industry that makes it seem as though online multiplayer is an absolute must have.

[DanielGearSolid]

No need to get defensive...
Nobody bashed the game for not having it. Just informing the readers

Side note: at this point the use of the word "trope" is a trope...

[pootymcpoockle]

It was more a comment on the fact that it's stated in a way that makes it seem like it should be there, as there's a big difference between declaring the absence of a feature and the presence of one.

[Chrischi1988]

All went nuts about a mario 3d plattformer not having it, so why is this different?

[LAWSON72]

Why hate it? Consumers should be offered the choice between the two especially when most major countries are online focused especially young people. There is literally no reason to not include online multiplayer if a game is coop or competitive driven locally. Nintendo is not dominator of console gaming so I dont understand why they think they can push couch play on to consumers. This is not a closed market where the producer can dictate how people use their products. That is one of the many reasons why the Wii U is not selling. Like come on I have seen indie games with both.

Why should someone get a console that is couch play only and be limited with who they can play with. Not everyone is in a suburban area with 3 people coming to there house on a daily basis. Meanwhile on PS4 and Xbone anybody with internet can game with buddies hassle free daily at anytime with good voice chat features. Sure couch play is a fun experience and it is great Nintendo does not want it to die, but people cant do nearly as frequently as playing over the internet.

I love NIntendo but they apparently have zero intentions to compete with the competitors and keep up with the market. The longer they do it the worse it is going to get.

[KonsoruMasuta]

"Nintendo is not dominator of console gaming so I dont understand why they think they can push couch play on to consumers."

Nintendo isn't developing the game. It's up to the third party devs to decide if they want to do it or not.

[LAWSON72]

@Konsor
Sega and Nintendo are in a partnership and this is clearly an attempt to keep up what Nintendo has been doing with the Wii U. Who payed who money? Think about who is probably calling shots with these exclusive games.
***hint** Nintendo would not pay someone cash to make Sonic (a IP that has been far from great for years) and not keep a close eye on its development.

Also am I not understanding this correctly, "No online multiplayer; living room experience focused", as couch coop only. IF it has no multiplayer at all I than okay that is fine, but if a game can do couch coop there is usually no reason to have online

[KonsoruMasuta]

I doubt Nintendo is calling the shots. This whole game is basically SEGA's idea. They want to advertise this new Sonic and tie it in with their new show on Cartoon Network; Nintendo has nothing to do with that. It was most likely SEGA's idea to outsource the game to a western studio as well.

All Nintendo did was pay for exclusivity and help market it.

[LAWSON72]

Maybe companies are stupid why pay for an exclusive game when it is possible to be terrible (which Sonic has a history of being), thus sell terribly.

[Chrischi1988]

Nintendo has nothing to do with its development, so maybe you should stop with this nonsense about nintendo. Sonic is developed by Sega, exclusively, but still not made by Nintendo. And I truly believe, that it is not up to nintendo, if a game not made by nintendo, has or has not online multiplayer.

But I knew somebody would make it seem like it is nintendos fault, just didnt expect it that fast, but thanks, I almost believed the trolls would stop on just one single article.

[LAWSON72]

@chrischi

Here is a quote from Kotaku said by Miyamoto about the focus of Wii U

"While online play is certainly technically possible for us, it simply wasn’t the focus for us this time around," Miyamoto said. "What we really wanted to do was to create something that people could experience fully while playing comfortably with others who were nearby them, and this is something we decided would be best for Pikmin and the best case for Mario here as well.P

"Now that is to say the answer to this question might change in ten years time, if there’s a future game where for example we don’t think it’s important to be able to see the face of the person you’re playing with, then we might be able to focus more on some online function there. But for right now our focus is really on a comfortable play experience with people in the same room."

They decided what was best for the players instead of giving gamers the option to decide how they want to play a game cooperatively. You Nintendo fanboys make think we are all out to bash them but the fact is they dont want to focus any attention to the most important feature to alot of people. online play. When they sell 20M Wii Us (maybe to generous a number) by the end of its lifecycle it will be one of the many reasons.

[dcj0524]

Nobody said that was bad. Simply stating fact. If BF5 has no single player i would want to know too.

[-Foxtrot]

I hate multiplayer in games when it's not needed and I don't like the look of this game but I can see where it's needed

The concept of this game seems to be 4 friends with local co-op....now just like Super Mario 3D World with this focus on working together with friends and being built up with co-op in mind why does it not have an online so friends can play with each other over the online service

Thats twice now Nintendo has done this and the third will be another co-op like game coming out Donkey Kong Tropical Freeze. Games which don't need online modes fair enough I can get behind but with games like this which seem built up already with the feature in mind it screams out for it.

Imagine if you had a game like L4D or Borderlands but you couldn't go online with it...

[deafdani]

If a game has local multiplayer, it would benefit from online multiplayer as well.

[eaise]

I saw the same thing in another article, and really it's not too surprising. Sonic has never been real big on online so even though it's being made by Big Red Button instead of Sonic Team I wasn't expecting to see online Coop. Sonic games are similar to Mario games in the sense that they would rather focus on having amazing local Coop and have no online Coop instead of using some of their resources to have online gameplay.

EDIT: Went and gave a second look at the article. And I saw "Other Characters likely to be playable". I really hope Shadow is one of those. Shadow is my favorite character in the Sonic games!
EDIT2: The article is wrong. In the interview he says the playable characters are the ones they announced (Sonic, Knuckles, Tails, Amy). Other characters may be in the game but not playable

[wonderfulmonkeyman]

Well, how many other Sonic games had online co-op?
Hmm?

ALRIGHTY THEN.

It would have been nice to have, but for Sonic games, lack of online multi isn't really a deal-breaker, so I'll still be giving this game a shot to impress me.
It's the first Sonic game in a long time to really step outside of the franchise's comfort zone, and I'm all for supporting attempts at change in a franchise so long as it isn't too drastic.

[ZainreFang]

Well, that sucks! It's a game based on co-op! If Trine 2 can do it, why can't this? Oh, well. I'm going to have to just play with my brother.

[BobbytheBuilder]

im happy to see a lot of games moving away from a "mandatory" multiplayer mode. if the game doesnt need it, don't waste resources on it.

[mrbojingles]

Honestly, I really want developers to return to supportin local play. Then again, if you focus on making great experiences that only work well if you've got friends in the room than that means your customers are spending less time on a digital network with less chance to milk them with DLC and micro-transactions so I can see why most don't support it.

[Chrischi1988]

I play locally almost every day. I have no fun playing alone online. I have no fun, sitting somewhere alone and play something... I think it is sad, that games evolve in that direction, because instead of bringing friends together, it actually parts them, so they can play online together... in a way that hurts real friendships.

[WickedLester]

GOOD!

[linkenski]

Good to hear they covered the framerate portion. It looks like they sacrificed a bit of graphics fidelity here and there though, but it dosn't matter because the game looks amazing anyway :-D

[DivineAssault]

of course not.. Its a wii u exclusive after all