Nintendo's Gamecube has lost yet another game due its lack of online capabilities.
On Monday, Blizzard announced that StarCraft: Ghost was not going to be released for Nintendo's Gamecube, due to a lack of online capabilities. Employee MicahW had this to say in the Battle.net forums:
In order to provide the game envisioned by the console team a set and readily available online solution was needed. Unfortunately the GameCube has no online service and since so much work is going in to the online portion, it would be additional work to release only part of the intended game. [...] The GameCube and Revolution will still be considered for future products, unfortunately Ghost will only be made available on the Xbox and PS2 at this time.
If you look at the Ghost FAQ, one of the major changes made since Swingin' Ape Studios took over is greatly improved online play. Xbox live will be used for the Xbox version of Ghost, while the Playstation 2 will used a modified version of the Battle.net software. We can conclude from this that Ghost will have a heavy multiplayer aspect, especially since it would actually "require additional work" to release an offline edition of Ghost for the Gamecube.
Yet another development stemming from this is that Ghost will probably not be for next-generation consoles after all, since MicahW also states that the Revolution will be considered for future projects. As such, the recent job openings for next-gen consoles are likely related to yet-to-be-announced projects.
Lastly, the Zerg will be fully playable, according to GameSpy's preview of Ghost. We can expect great things from Ghost, and rejoice knowing that it will include the same rich multiplayer experience that was a hallmark of its predecessor.
Links
Battle.net Forums - Official post
Ghost FAQ - Changes since Swingin' Ape took over
Starcraft Legacy - Source
