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Don't expect World of Warcraft on the PS3 or Xbox 360 ever
Blizzard Entertainment's Rob Pardo is a bona fide Rockstar in the gaming industry. In his recent keynote speech at the Game Developer's Conference at the Paris GDC he continued to indirectly extinguish rumors that suggested World of Warcraft is coming to a Console, rumors that stretch back years. While not specifically talking about World of Warcraft, when Pardo was asked what kept MMOs from Consoles he responded: "Lack of hard drive space, and difficulty in certifying patches. Basically just that.... another problem is that they want a piece of the subscriptions (laughs)." That's a simplistic answer coming from the Executive VP of Design at Blizzard Entertainment, but there it is laid out in plain sight, a truth even if shared in a humorous fashion. Giving Microsoft or Sony residuals, most likely a big chunk is one thing keeping World of Warcraft off Consoles. Is that a bad thing? No, but Blizzard could be missing something here, and just maybe Rob Pardo is plain wrong about what's keeping MMOs away from Consoles. It's simple really...
PC Gaming Alliance seeking to set guidelines
As much as we like gaming on our PCs, even the most stalwart fanboy has to concede that sometimes the whole process is just a huge pain in the butt. While installing Age of Conan for the first time the other day, this blogger spent no less than five hours downloading the client, patching Windows Vista, updating video drivers, then tracking down a hack to undo the damage down when those video drivers didn't work properly. While there are supposedly a "maze of challenges" ahead with porting the game to consoles, those problems are largely Funcom's and not the consumers'.This is something that the recently-formed PC Gaming Alliance (PCGA) would like to solve. Rick Carini, CTO of gaming technology at Dell and chairman of the PCGA, posits that this needless complexity is the barrier impeding the continued growth of PC gaming. Even hardcore gamers find themselves stymied sometimes by this. The PCGA is looking to push for standards on the side of game makers and computer manufacturers to ensure that a computer sold as a "gaming PC" should be able to run the majority of games. We're not sure what, if anything, will come of the PCGA's work, but we're hopeful they can develop some sort of standard to bring more warm bodies into the fold.
Turbine still playing cagey over DDO console version
First floated yesterday, the rumor that Dungeons and Dragons Online was going to be ported to consoles is still flopping around, gasping for breath, yet not entirely dead. According to an article on the Crispy Gamer site, Turbine Communications Director Adam Mersky has neither confirmed nor denied the rumor. He only states that they are working on a console title, whose announcement will come later this year. Though the article seems to take it as read that DDO is not console-bound, Mersky's comment was not a flat denial, meaning that there is still a possibility that the franchise could find a home on one of the next-gen systems. Is this something that would be of interest? Would the console version's players be able to play against the PC version's players? Time will tell, and once it's been announced, so will we![Thanks, James!]
NVIDIA VP heralds the end of PC-exclusive games
The supposed "war" between consoles and PCs has been raging since the time the great MC Hammer walked the earth, with proponents of both sides taking pot-shots at the other for nearly as long as we can remember. We thought we'd heard just about every kind of comment that could be said between the two sides, but a recent interview with NVIDIA's Roy Taylor has proved us quite mistaken. According to Taylor, the future gaming as we know it is going to be a flip of the trend we've seen over the last ten years ago. Where once PC games served as the baseline and were ported over to consoles, now console games will be the baseline and PCs will be the recipients of enhanced ports. In other words, the end of the PC-exclusive is nigh.If you just look at MMOs, which continue to drive the popularity of PC gaming, you can see that this is plainly false. While there are a number of MMOs scheduled to be released for consoles, with high profile names like Age of Conan, Champions Online, All Points Bulletin, and perhaps even Dungeons and Dragons, nobody has proven they can navigate the "maze of challenges" that come with cross-platform MMO development, let alone make a profit doing it. And in this blogger's mind, until MMOs officially cross-over to the dark side, it's too early to proclaim the PC-exclusive dead.
Trion announces another project, coming to consoles
Despite predictions that this generation of consoles would herald in the first wave of successful console MMOs, we've really yet to see anything more than scattered chatter and a few announcements here and there. That's why we were excited to hear that Trion World Network, who we found out earlier today are also working on a project with the Sci Fi Channel, announced plans to bring a new fantasy MMO project to the Xbox 360 and PS3, in addition to a release on the PC.Jon Van Caneghem, creator of the Might & Magic series, will be the creative force behind the game, which we still know precious little about at this point. The comments from Caneghem indicated that the as-yet-unnamed game will have a dynamic world that would change based on the actions of players. No word yet on the scale of the project, whether there will be cross-platform play, or whether there is some sort of development timetable. Very interesting news from a developer/publisher that is quickly finding a place on our MMO radar. And hey, they're hiring!
WoW on Zazoox stations
Soley saw something strange at the airport in Denver: a console with PC games on it, including none other than World of Warcraft. Apparently there was a kiosk with a bunch of different games installed on it, and for a small fee, you could jump in and play any number of games, from Valve's FPSes (including Portal!) to our own big MMORPG.The company doing this is called Zazoox -- they have a site that shows off all of their different consoles and offers them (for a price and a service charge) to vendors who can then put them up in public places. World of Warcraft isn't actually on their games list yet, so apparently it's just being tested in Denver and other places. Apparently, the price is 25 cents a minute, but as some of the commenters to Soley's post say, if you're entering your WoW password on what is basically a public computer and something goes wrong, it could cost you a lot more than that.Of course, overseas in Asia, this kind of thing is common -- the vast majority of WoW players there play in public cafes and Internet houses, and in fact the pricing scheme of the game itself there is per hour, not per month like it is here. But for some reason, this kind of ubiquitous public gaming has never taken off in the West -- maybe Zazoox's consoles will get people playing out in public.
Funcom: "maze of challenges" ahead for cross-platform Conan
Age of Conan is not the first MMO to release on consoles as well as the PC. Phantasy Star Universe and Final Fantasy XI were among the vanguards there. Unfortunately, the existing precedents haven't made it look easy. There are a lot of issues to consider. Will Xbox Live (or the PlayStation Network, if the game ever lands on Sony's shores) download regulations prevent prompt bug patching? Will PC users be forced to use voice chat, or will 360 users be forced to buy keyboards? How does one design a user interface that will be equally effective with a console controller and a keyboard/mouse combo?According to Funcom Project Manager Jorgen Theraldsen, these and other questions have been at the forefront of the development team's thoughts since the beginning. In an interview with MMORPG, he revealed that AoC's combat system has gone through nine iterations throughout Funcom's quest to make it appealing to console users. He admitted that the team still faces "a maze of challenges." At the same time, he assured PC users that the game will not be simplified or held back to make things easier for 360 players. A fine balance, that.Choosing between the two platforms is probably easy, but many potential players only have one or the other. Funcom will have to keep them all happy if this is going to work. That won't be an easy task.
The Digital Continuum: Conan's little quirks
I've been enjoying my time with Age of Conan, but to be honest there are some design choices -- mostly related to the user interface -- that truly confuse me. I'm forced to decide between scratching my head or pulling my hair out. Although I don't want to tempt fate, so I think leaving my hair intact is probably the best choice.So here's an example: Did you know about both skill points and feat points? I'm sure a lot of you have discovered at least one of these, especially since the feats have their own tab to click within the user interface. But I'm willing to bet that many of you didn't discover skills right away. The big problem is that there's nothing on the screen to jump out and inform you that some super-important new skill points or feat points are in need of assigning. When did this design document get accidentally knocked off the meeting room table and into the garbage?
Shane Kim: First console to 100 million wins
Microsoft's Shane Kim now sees the end to the console war as a new magic number: first system to 100 million units sold wins, he tells Wired. That's an increase of 90 million over the 10 million mark Microsoft used to promote as the bellwether of victory. Kim believes consumers are still deciding what system to choose and that this console generation is different from the others. (Yeah, it's the first time Microsoft actually has a chance.)Kim explains that Sony won the last couple generations, but Nintendo is clearly in first place this time around; however, he wonders if Nintendo can keep that momentum going up to 100 million (at Nintendo's rate of supply, it could take decades). He even questions it there'll be a clear-cut winner this generation. Finally, Kim assures that the Microsoft hardware guys are still working on reducing the cost of Xbox 360, in order to hit that "mass market" price point.
The unaddressed impediments to console MMOs
It's a question we often ask ourselves, particularly when games like Grand Theft Auto IV sell over 3 million copies inside of a month: what's stopping developers from bringing more MMOs to the console space? If you ask the console makers, they'll say that the opportunities are there for the taking. They're stable platforms, uniformly online-enabled, and they have captive audiences in the tens of millions. So what's the problem?Joe Ludwig, producer of Pirates of the Burning Sea, explained in a recent blog post that it's really pretty straight-forward. He says that the addition of a platform-owner to the developer/publisher dynamic throws a wrench in the process. Not only do the console manufacturers demand a cut of the already-tenuous profit margins, but their certification processes also slow down the release of patches. Couple that with longer development times and the inherent limitations of voice-chat, and you've got a yourself sticky situation. Will we see successful console MMOs in the future? Undoubtedly. But the prospects of success in the short-term, Ludwig says, are likely slim.
The Daily Grind: Do you only play MMOs?
We cover a lot of MMOs here at Massively, but that doesn't mean that it's the only type of game we're interested in. Many of us on the team love to rip into a good console game too, or other PC games of the non-MMO variety. Sure, being involved in more than a single MMO can take up a significant portion of gaming time, but it's safe to say that we do enjoy other types of games as well.If you've come to Massively, you likely at least have an interest in MMOs, if you aren't currently playing one or more of them -- but is that the only genre of game that you play? Do you like to play any of the current generation of consoles? Or perhaps you kick it old school with one of the awesome consoles of bygone eras? When it comes to the PC, do you only play the bigger games, or do you dip into the casual realm with titles such as Peggle? And what about those nifty handhelds, and cellphone games -- daily commute anyone?
The Daily Grind: Why aren't there more console MMOs?
The list of them can be counted on the fingers of one hand: Phantasy Star Online, for the Dreamcast; Everquest Online Adventures and Final Fantasy XI for the Playstation 2; and Phantasy Star Universe for both the PS2 and the Xbox 360. And that's it. The only MMO currently thought to be planned for release on both PC and console (though not at launch) is Age of Conan for the 360. Why is there such a dearth of console MMOs?Many will say that it's because MMOs are so complex and rich that they cannot be managed with a console controller, and that's partly true -- imagine playing World of Warcraft with a DualShock -- but that's more of a design issue. A game meant for consoles, rather than one ported over from the PC, should have such limitations in mind. There's also the closed environment of the console, which is harder to plan patches for, and the still-in-its-infancy online service for the three major brands. On the bright side, there would be no need to worry about system specs; every player would be getting the same experience. And there could be added value in game achievements, which is a system that doesn't currently exist for PC MMOs.Are there more reasons against console MMOs than there are for them? Should developers bother with the consoles at all?
Former Xbox Europe VP says consoles will be dead in 5-10 years
The last time we heard someone proclaim the death of the game console, it was EA's head of international distribution saying that an open gaming platform distributed within cable and satellite set-top boxes would take over within 15 years -- a prediction at which we laughed pretty heartily, given that most cable companies can't even manage to get a functional DVR out the door. So it's fairly surprising to hear the former VP of Xbox Europe make the exact same prediction, and bump up the timeline pretty dramatically: Sandy Duncan, who was with MS for 15 years, recently said that dedicated game devices "will die in the next five to 10 years," and that "most of this stuff will be 'virtualized' as web services by your content provider." Of course, Duncan's now with YoYo Games, which is a web-based gaming company, so he might be a little biased, but there's truth in his statement that the console gaming market is risky and that launch costs of new hardware are incredibly high. Still, as Duncan should know first-hand, it's an investment that can definitely pay off, and we think consumers are always going to demand choice and quality -- two things that aren't exactly synonymous with cable and satellite hardware.[Via GameDaily]
Codemasters looking to publish two console MMOs
Speaking with GamesIndustry.biz, Codemasters has made it known that there are two MMO titles for consoles that they are in talks to publish. Codemasters has done well as the European distributor of Lord of the Rings Online, and they will be publishing the anticipated Jumpgate Evolution later in the year. These and other MMO ventures have led them to explore new possibilities in the home console market.David Solari, vice-president and general manager of Codemasters Online Gaming, said, "the time is right for some good console MMO games", but also admitted, "it's a little more challenging because of the restrictions of a console -- certain games aren't going to work". Right now they're working on making sure that they pick the right games to bring over. They hope to enter the market within the coming year, putting their titles up against other MMOs that are moving into console territory, like The Agency and Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures.
A clandestine interview with The Agency's Kevin O'Hara
MMO Gamer recently got a chance to sit down with Kevin O'Hara, designer for the hotly anticipated SOE spy-thriller The Agency. Among the things O'Hara touches on during the interview are his thoughts on what subscription model they'll use (it's completely up in the air at this point), the wisdom behind directing the game at consoles (O'Hara believes the shooter gameplay will endear it to that audience), and how bosses in a spy game might be slightly atypical (you may travel to their volcano lair and win the day with a hand of poker instead of fighting).One thing I found particularly interesting was the way they're trying to balance fast action with the fun and sense of place that comes from existing in a persistent world. The Agency as he describes it will have a "hub-and-spoke feel to it" where most of the mission-based content will necessarily be instanced. He also mentioned how PvP will be accessible at the touch of a button, tossing you right into the middle of a multiplayer map. In this respect I almost feel like they're paying too much homage to the game's shooter roots. If I wanted to jump into multiplayer deathmatch utterly lacking in context, I'd put in Call of Duty 4. I'm hoping they give slightly more of an incentive to make it akin to traditional MMO PvP. Just, ya know, with guns and spy gadgets.
The intersection of Spore and MMOs
Will Wright's surely-a-masterpiece Spore got a date earlier this week, and just last night the floodgates opened on press coverage of it, so we've got lots of new info to drool over in the weeks to come. But Mike, you say to me, Spore isn't an MMO-- why are you talking about it here on Massively?You're right-- it's not an MMO, but it does have MMO qualities: creatures you create in Spore will show up on others' screens and vice versa, via the game's constant online connection. You'll never play a game against someone else, but your game will live in a huge, persistent online world, and your content will become others' as well. We're talking about Spore because it will intersect a lot with the MMO industry this year-- and even more than you may think.
NCsoft Prez Chris Chung talks shop with GI and 1UP
Game Informer and 1UP both recently had the privilege of sitting down with NCSoft President Chris Chung to talk about what direction he plans to take the company in 2008. Some of the things that Chung spoke about (and there was much overlap between the two interviews) were reminiscent of the comments that Richard Garriott made in his speech at George Washington University late last year. Garriott had talked about how NCsoft was looking to make their stable of MMOs more integrated with one another so that as players tire of one game and move onto another (a phenomenon referred to as "churn" within the industry), they can ensure that it will be another of their products. He also spoke briefly about NCsoft's current approach to console games, and he sounded considerably more tentative on the subject than we had originally been led to believe. He was complimentary of Sony's network model, and stated that he believed it was more in line with their policies than the competition. If we had to speculate, this would seem to indicate that Microsoft's Xbox Live service, which not only requires propriety features be included but also requires a subscription fee, was not their cup of tea. 1UP was more direct about this line of questioning, going so far as to ask out-right if City of Heroes was making its way to consoles. Chung refused to give a direct answer, but he didn't deny anything either, which is intriguing. It's an interesting interview, and sheds the NCsoft President (who only officially stepped into the role two weeks ago) in a favorable light.
New Square MMOs plunking around internally?
There are times, with all the talk about new MMOs from marquee companies better known for traditional RPG fare (think: Bioware and Bethesda), that we forget that among the first big RPG makers to make the massive jump was Square (now Square Enix) with Final Fantasy XI. While FFXI is still going strong, it's far from being the industry heavyweight that it was, and by most accounts has faded into relative obscurity. It's interesting to note then, when gamesindustry.biz sat down for an interview with Yoichi Wada, MMOs were really an afterthought in the conversation.What intrigued us though within Wada's brief mention of MMOs was his comment, "Following that, we have already prepared a few MMORPGs that have been experimentally played internally." Now, we understand that the semantics of this statement have to be taken with a grain of salt, as it's never made clear if Wada is speaking through an interpreter, but that statement would seem to indicate that they've got a number of projects in a playable state, at the very least, given that they used prepared in the past tense. As an avid console gamer myself, I'm dying to see what Square Enix could do if they took another swing at a game that encompasses not only the PC, but also the Xbox 360 and PS3 as well. Hopefully this is something we hear more about as the year progresses.
Another rumor regarding Blizzard's love affair with consoles
Here we go again, another rumor that World of Warcraft is going to appear on a "next-gen" console near you. This is one of those rumors that have been brought up time and time again. This little buzzing rumor is like that one annoying fly you can't seem to kill for good. What brought it up this time was a comment made by Chris Ansell, Director of Product Globalisation for Radical Entertainment and came through the website Gameplayer.Radical was recently giving a presentation on their upcoming title Prototype. After demonstrating the game's online co-operative features Chris was asked by Gameplayer if these features would even be available for off-line play. In short the answer was no, their focus is apparently online feature-specific and different types of new play in the online space. The quote responsible for the new rumor is this:"...we have to make sure we support it. Because next-gen consoles demand it. We have to be online. Obviously it's gonna get more and more like what WoW are doing, with thousands of players on consoles, eventually. Which is pretty exciting. I can't wait for that. It'll be pretty fun."All right, so someone could assume this means a version of WoW on consoles, except that Blizzard has denied this repeatedly. Even with this very new rumor, Vivendi Australia quickly contacted Gameplayer to inform them that the comment only meant the future of next-gen game development and how multiplayer was an ever-increasing aspect of it. What we think this means is that it's not WoW that we can expect to show up on consoles, but whatever Blizzard is working on beyond Starcraft II. Hm, now there's something to speculate about -- World of (insert favorite IP here) coming to a PS3 and Xbox 360 near you?
Phantasy Star Universe set for PSP, but with nerfed multiplayer
It was so exciting at first to read that Phantasy Star Universe is headed for the PSP. Developers have theorized before that a PSP MMO might be worth trying, and PSU is the perfect candidate because of its small-scale group battles and its pick-up-and-play approach. At first, it looked like this would finally be the big break!Or not! Sega has announced a Japanese PSU port for the PSP, but its multiplayer features are only ad hoc -- meaning it works over a local wi-fi connection between PSPs, not over the internet. So they've taken PSU, stripped out the "Massively" and "Online" parts of "MMO," and ported it to the PSP.Bad form, Sega -- bad form. Looks like we'll be waiting a bit longer for an MMO-on-the-go that isn't a cell phone game meant for 'tweens. Maybe NCsoft is PSP MMO fans' only hope.
