Sometimes simple explanations work best. That much we reaffirmed when we heard Sega's reason why Virtua Fighter 5 for the Sony PlayStation 3 has no online play, while its yet to be released Microsoft Xbox 360 counterpart has the juicy feature.

Kotaku was able to talk to Sega's Tohru Murayama and Noriyuki Shimoda and they explained that time constraints had the PS3 version trading off online play for an early launch.

"Well, the PlayStation 3 version was developed first so the online was missed, but because the 360 version came later we could add that feature," says Shimoda.

Murayama was then queried on whether a future download could add the feature to the PS3 version, but the idea was quickly negated. "If we wanted to, we'd think about it, but the point with the PlayStation 3 version was to release the game as close to the console's release as possible. So we have no plans for that," concludes the Japanese game maker.

I'm admittedly a Tekken fan (Whoa, I said "I"...and Lei rocks!), but like a good Kung-Fu master, the rule of thumb for many a gamer like me is to keep one's mind open to new experiences, always looking at what sort of new stuff can be expected from the other guys. Which brings us to this hot title coming up for the PS3: Virtua Fighter 5.

The guys over at 1up have just been gone through their copy of the game (lucky stiffs), and while they certainly liked what they played through, they felt that a post-game report wouldn't be complete without an interview with the Noriyuki Shimoda and Tohru Murayama. In this interview with two of AM2's arcade team, James Mielke lets us in on game details PS3 owners can expect when the console version hits, as compared to Sega's Lindbergh arcade version.

Among other areas, such as the team's challenge of building around the PS3's cell processor and game balance issues between the two versions, the duo was asked about one hot-button topic - the game's lack of online play. According to them, the feature was intentionally left out of the PS3 pack for various reasons - one being the expected lag time during bouts.

The other reason was more sentimental - it just doesn't "feel" right if you're not going mano-a-mano at the arcades when playing this title, and thus the team felt that the game would be truer to form if they encouraged people to still meet up in the arcade. True enough - victories just don't feel as fulfilling without a satisfactory handshake with our felled opponents.

One other (slightly off-topic) side that guys may want to read up on is the group's discussions on the removal of the AI mode from the PS2's Evolution game. And by the way: Shimoda's a Jacky player, and Tohru's a Brad user. For the full interview, read up on the link.