You may remember our previous article regarding new offline and online details for SEGA’s Kinect title Sonic Free Riders being revealed at the games product page at the official Xbox website but if you look at the page today you’ll see some changes have been made to offline and online multiplayer numbers. The developer listing has also been changed from O-Two to Sonic Team.

Old listings –

Offline features:
– Players: 1-4
– Players Co-op: 1-4
– Multiplayer Versus
– In-game Dolby Digital
– HDTV 720p
– Storage Device

Xbox Live Features:
– Players: 2-12
– Content Downloads
– Leaderboards
– Voice Messaging
– Voice Support

New listings –

Offline features:
Players: 1-2
Players Co-op: TBD
Multiplayer Versus
In-game Dolby Digital
HDTV 720p
Storage Device

Xbox Live features:
Players: TBD
Content Downloads
Leaderboards
Voice Messaging
Voice Support

Could Kinect be causing some trouble for the games development? Stories have been going around the net since E3 regarding the multiplayer capabilities of the device with most saying it only performs well with 2 players at one time, SEGA representatives that were playing the Sonic Free Riders demo at their E3 booth were only showcasing the single player and 2 player split screen modes despite Xbox.com’s now previous claim of support for up to 4 players.

Judging by these changes we can only guess that SEGA were aiming for 4 player split-screen but the device couldn’t handle all of the players actions too well but why would possible changes to online multiplayer numbers have to be made? We’ll keep an eye out for any clearance on this and report back.

Source: Xbox.com product page