Tribes: Ascend isn't skiing to consoles
We've more or less known that Tribes: Ascend wouldn't be heading to consoles – as initially pitched – for a year or more now. That whole "free-to-play" thing is kinda the kiss of death for devs hoping to port to consoles (unless you're CCP, that is). Hi-Rez Studios COO Todd Harris explained it further in a recent interview.
"We do not have any plans for Tribes on console at this time," Harris said. That decision sprang from Hi-Rez's business model of choice, rather than technical limitations. "The way it went is that we wanted to do the free-to-play model, and there wasn't a clear path to that on consoles early on." Unlike CCP, the Tribes team is just 15 people, so negotiating with the big boys (Sony, Microsoft) wasn't really an option.
Harris isn't counting out console makers playing nice with free-to-play devs in the future (even the near future), but Tribes: Ascend likely won't bridge that gap. "We're still interested in free-to-play on consoles, but at this point, we have nothing specific to Tribes on console," Harris added.
Tribes: Ascend is currently available on Windows PC.
