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Originally posted by: vudu I'm not arguing against the possibility that some levels might not be available for online play. But what you're suggesting is the equivalent of playing Mario Kart online without the Lightening Bolt or Halo 3 without grenades. It's not the same thing at all.
These are completely different situations.
Halo 3 and MK: DS can both tolerate some latency without the gameplay being absolutely destroyed. SSB, however, just doesn't have that luxury.
We all know how important reflex and timing are to success in the game. If the online play would see some speed loss for ANY reason, then the game basically goes out the window.
I'm quite certain that millions of players will grab SSBB on launch day in order to test their skills against their online friends, but if the game can't keep up with the overhead and starts to lag, then nothing has been resolved. You're no longer fighting to see who's the best at SSBB but to see who can compensate for lag the best.
But beyond that, items are great, sure, but they're not intrinsic to the game. You can still have a competition of skill against another player without them. As much as I dislike tourney rules, sometimes I would turn off items and just duel with a skilled player (on the rare occasion that one was around).
It's not just the items themselves that could cause issues, either. Keep in mind that items bring with them a plethora of graphical effects which could potentially lag the game.
A screen with multiple legendary Pokemans firing off their specials could very likely lag a game, as could some of the particularly flashy final smashes. Nintendo seems confident that items and online won't be an issue, but this doesn't mean that it wasn't reasonable speculative a concern.
Let me just say that, having dealt with networking code and the issues it raises myself, I'm DAMN impressed at what Nintendo is doing here.
Four player online alone is a bloody miracle, and with items running is just icing on that cake. It's not unreasonable to expect they might have been out of sugar before then.