Both the PlayStation 2 and Microsoft Xbox versions of Mortal Kombat: Armageddon featured online play, allowing gamers to battle it out against one another over the Internet. However, Midway has announced that the Wii version will not - and they blame Nintendo.

“Obviously we had online on other platforms so it wasn’t going to be a technology challenge for us,” said the game’s producer, Shaun Himmerick, to advancedmn.com. “Nintendo didn’t have their online system ready for us when we would have needed to implement it,” he continued.

Is no online mode the end of the world?

So it looks like Nintendo were holding back on the console’s online development tools for themselves, because Mortal Kombat: Armageddon is released after Nintendo’s own Mario Strikers Charged (available later on this month in Europe and at the beginning of June in North America). However, to alleviate some of the disappointed Wii owners are bound to have suffered, Himerick promised that the top-notch single player mode would make amends:

“That is a big reason we focused on giving the single player experience even more attention to perfect the new controls system, the addition of Endurance mode and an additional Kharacter.”

Mortal Kombat: Armageddon is the second Wii title in as many days that has lost its expected online functionality, following on from the news reported by GameDaily yesterday that Electronic Arts’ EA Playground will also lack console-to-console interaction.

Nintendo must’ve really been hogging onto those online development tools, eh?