The developers of London 2012 on Spotpass, Streetpass and why no online or MotionPlus...

As the world gets ready for next year's London Olympics, Sega is in there with another Mario & Sonic tie-in. Today, key development staff from the Wii and 3DS games were on-hand to answer questions put to them by readers of ONM.

Firstly, on the issue of no MotionPlus support, Wii director Eigo Kasahara elaborated on the team's vision for the game.

"The main reason is that we wanted to make this game the perfect multiplayer, party-time experience. We don't think that many people have four MotionPlus controllers so we didn't want to limit the gaming experience."

The Mario & Sonic series is also notable for a lack of online play, and things are no different with 2012. Producer Nobuya Ohashi offered an explanation for why he didn't think online was necessarily appropriate for the games.

"We've done the research through online questionnaires and focus testing to see the demand for online multiplayer and we actually found out that there's not much demand for online multiplayer from the fans of this series. At the same time, not many people have the infrastructure or the facility that's required for online multiplayer so that's one thing. The other thing is some of the events are quite short. An event like the 100 metres only lasts ten seconds or 20 seconds maximum so would you really go through all the trouble of connecting with your friends on the other side of the world for ten or 20 seconds?"

The 3DS version of the game will meanwhile opt out of taking use of the system's Spotpass or Streetpass functionalities, although Sega did note that would incorporate such features if they fitted the Mario & Sonic universe.

For more developer insight into the upcoming Mario & Sonic at the 2012 London Olympics, be sure to head over to the ONM feature here.