(apologies if this has been already posted...) 

WTF EA???

I'm very glad I didn't buy this now - online would have been the primary reason for a purchase. Thanks for screwing us Aussies over again!

http://www.theage.com.au/news/articles/games-online-battle-function-missing/2008/02/11/1202578652888.html

...

Games publisher Electronic Arts is offering full refunds to Australians who bought Medal of Honor: Heroes 2 after admitting it advertised the game's features incorrectly.

One of the core features of the World War II-based first-person shooter title was the ability for up to 32 players to battle each other online. But, while this is possible with overseas versions of the game, all multiplayer options have been stripped from the Australian release.

The revelation caused a furore in the Australian gaming community because EA had touted the online multiplayer support heavily in its marketing material, on its website and in the game's manual.

Similarly, just before the launch of its FIFA 08 title last year, EA announced the Australian version would lack the 5 vs 5 online multiplayer component that was present in overseas releases. At the time the publisher said the omission was due to server lag issues.

Medal of Honor: Heroes 2, priced at $99.99, was released locally last Thursday for the Nintendo Wii. A Sony PSP version was released last year but is not covered by the refund offer.

"Medal of Honor: Heroes 2 for Wii does not support online functionality in Australia," EA spokesman Cameron Jenkins said.

"We've made an error in the documentation and marketing materials. We're very sorry to have caused confusion for our customers and we will provide a refund to anyone in Australia who wishes to return the game to EA because of the lack of online functionality."

Jenkins would not say why Australians were forced to miss out when the online component was present in the North American, European and Japanese versions.

He said those seeking a refund should return the game and receipt to the retailer they bought it from.

What was the reason why there was no online? UK version has online right?

Poor Australians..that was pretty lame. I wonder how this will affect sales.

Hm. Yeah. I'm confused.

well, at least they are offering a refund. Imagine if they quietly write that in the back in fine print? ;)

Like seriously though. I wonder what is wrong. Is it something against private servers in the law or something... would an American copy work in an American wii in Australia?

Hmmm... I got MoH two days ago for $75.00 so I'm not too shaken up about the loss of multiplayer. Don't get me wrong, I don't like that it's gone, but I've been quite impressed with everything else so far. Besides, all of my friends are playing Team Fortress 2 for PC, so it's not such a great loss. Now if they cut online from Smash... then there will be blood.

Wii-IGN:

MY assumption is they looked at the sales, decided online play isn't a selling feature for Wii owners (cause let's face it, this is the ONLY Wii shooter with real online play and it still doesn't sell) so they probably figured it wasn't worth the network costs of including it in Australia.

azrm2k said: Wii-IGN: but from what we understand the company would need to run local servers to ensure low latency online play, and it has evidently decided not to do so. That's bull. My NA MOH doesn't have low latency online play and yet I don't get a refund!

It would if you were connecting to those NA servers from Australia.

Bascially, EA doesn't want to incur the costs of setting up servers to cater to a small Australian market. I'm sure Australians will let EA know what they think of this policy with their wallets, and more than a few angry emails.

 Edit: I think I misread what you were saying about latency there. Still, connecting to NA servers from Australia would have pretty much unplayable latency.