27th October 2014, 8:02 AM
(This post was last modified: 27th October 2014, 8:22 AM by Dark Jaguar.)
Near as I can tell, it's the "lower priority" thing that mattered more. They ran into some sort of technical issue, most likely solvable, but rather than invest time in dealing with it they decided it was better to focus on other characters, such as Rosalina & Luma (who would seem, to me, to have the same technical issues as Ice Climbers might).
Addendum: Okay I think I have a better idea now. 4 player ice climbers wasn't the issue, most likely it was 4 ice climbers online that would have caused issues. The difference between Luma and Ice Climbers is that Luma has no AI. Luma is more or less directly controlled by the player. While that AI isn't exactly complex in any meaningful way, when you add in online play, negotiating 4 different sets of AI controls across online packets while an online match is going on likely only added to latency issues. Rather than have a character seemingly arbitrarily struck from online play, they opted to simply leave them out entirely. Nintendo likes consistency. This is the sort of thing I can understand, as the online play already has latency issues in dire need of resolving. In fact, they already need to patch one major issue: ad-hoc wireless (that is, multiplayer between others in the same room) sometimes has big latency spikes. There's really no excuse for this, considering that multiplayer is basically the defining reason to get a game like this, so I'd say it's in need of an update somewhere down the line.
I should note that Brawl included Ice Climbers even with online mode. However, I think we all remember just how laggy Brawl's online was, even when connected directly with a LAN adapter (now that they are basically all but demanding you buy such an adapter for Smash Bros, it really makes it seem like not including a LAN port in the system that doesn't go through USB 2.0 was shortsighted).
I still am not sure why the console version lacks them though. Ultimately, I still think that the Climber's lack of development focus is the real reason. I think down the line they may just decide to focus on them completely for a few months and solve all of those issues.
Addendum: Okay I think I have a better idea now. 4 player ice climbers wasn't the issue, most likely it was 4 ice climbers online that would have caused issues. The difference between Luma and Ice Climbers is that Luma has no AI. Luma is more or less directly controlled by the player. While that AI isn't exactly complex in any meaningful way, when you add in online play, negotiating 4 different sets of AI controls across online packets while an online match is going on likely only added to latency issues. Rather than have a character seemingly arbitrarily struck from online play, they opted to simply leave them out entirely. Nintendo likes consistency. This is the sort of thing I can understand, as the online play already has latency issues in dire need of resolving. In fact, they already need to patch one major issue: ad-hoc wireless (that is, multiplayer between others in the same room) sometimes has big latency spikes. There's really no excuse for this, considering that multiplayer is basically the defining reason to get a game like this, so I'd say it's in need of an update somewhere down the line.
I should note that Brawl included Ice Climbers even with online mode. However, I think we all remember just how laggy Brawl's online was, even when connected directly with a LAN adapter (now that they are basically all but demanding you buy such an adapter for Smash Bros, it really makes it seem like not including a LAN port in the system that doesn't go through USB 2.0 was shortsighted).
I still am not sure why the console version lacks them though. Ultimately, I still think that the Climber's lack of development focus is the real reason. I think down the line they may just decide to focus on them completely for a few months and solve all of those issues.
"On two occasions, I have been asked [by members of Parliament], 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able to rightly apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question." ~ Charles Babbage (1791-1871)