Reuters is reporting that “online consumer spending on Microsoft’s Xbox Live online service increased 84 percent year-over-year and members of the Xbox Live community rose to over 17 million members at the end of 2008, the company said. Consumers have spent over $1 billion on Microsoft’s Xbox Live online service since its launch for the 360 in 2005, according the Microsoft.”
So can someone please explain to me why we haven’t seen a AAA MMO title come to the console yet?
Methinks it’s time to tap into this market, eh? Nah…that would make too much sense.
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Tell me about it.
Imagine Guild Wars or DDO on the console…
How about the new AoC 360?
No, all we have is the horrible FFXI, which just sucks on the console…or Phantasy Star, a dungeon grinding frag fest…snooze!
I wouldn’t play it. Would be just too hard to communicate with other players.
Could you imagine trying to play WoW with a 360 controller? I don’t know about you but I need more keys and better control than what a console controller can provide.
Agree with nerrolus
And don’t say anything about voice chat… can you imagine a General chat that is all voice? Whiny eight year olds and chuck norris jokes hurting your ears for hours.
I think MMOs should be able to cross-play. As in I could play WAR on my PC and 360 but play different features on the 360. I could be auto-sorted into scenarios/public quests on the 360 for a quick “couch experience”. Then the PC could be more for raids, management, etc. So the PC would remain the main “hub”, but if you wanted to you could switch to your 360 for the “couch experience” as you play scenarios for hours.
Champions Online has been aimed at the 360 (and the PC) for a while now. Who knows if they will actually finish and release the game, though?
@Tesh
My understanding is that Cryptic is looking to release both Champions and Star Trek Online for the 360.
I think it would be in Mircosoft’s best interest to see that it happens considering that SOE is bringing The Agency, Free Realms and DC Universe Online to the PS3.
There’s just too much money to be made.
I just can’t get my mind wrapped around playing an MMORPG on a console. These aren’t the kind of games where you jump in for a few minutes for some quick action.
Could you imagine trying to do a raid with a controller for 5+ hours? lol, man my hands would be killing me. Seems like if you have multiple mobs on the screen it would be a complete asswhip to target specific ones.
@Julien: Yeah, the voice chat is exactly what I had in mind. I was thinking about how horrid Barrens chat is. I couldn’t fucking imagine it setup as voice chat. Hell, imagine being in one of the capital cities trying to communicate with 100 other people trying to talk on the same channel. It would just be static.
I have played the following with a 360 controller
Guild Wars
DDO
AoC
LOTRO
Tabula Rasa
WoW
EQ2
The only ones with issues were EQ2 and WoW due to the crap ton of skills they give you.
All of the other games worked perfectly.
As to the “chat” issue. Real simple. Only play with your friends. If you do not have enough of those (which for some reason MMO players just do not..), then yes, you will have to resort to the PUG and hope you find some new friends…
Otherwise, mute works real well, where you can chop off those players who you hate to listen to.
Xbox has that awesome mute players by tag feature…would work perfectly here.
I personally think the “chat” issue is a personal problem for players, and if you do not know how to get around it..I am truly sorry.
My friends have played with voice chat, and I have played with a controller, which seems to help with carpal tunnel issues, especially the 360 controller which fits well, and is wireless…
I say, bring on the console MMO!
GW, DDO, and AoC I’ve never played. TR I can see working because it has minimal skills and is already very FPS like.
The others though, even LOTRO I don’t see how you did it. When I play those games I usually have 3-4 hotbars of buttons, two of which I use constantly. How do you setup a 360 controller to do all that?
Oh, and as for the voice thing … So you’re basically going to turn off every chat channel in the game or mute everyone except for your friends? Why not just go play an RPG then? Better story line and you can usually co-op with a few friends. The great thing about MMORPG’s is the ability to interact with thousands of people. If you’re shutting down that feature, then what’s the point? Even still, for the majority of the players this just isn’t going to be feasible. They’re still going to have to communicate on the general chat channels at some point, and that’s going to be mass chaos. All though, it might be fun listening to the gold spammers since they can’t even manage to get a good gold spamming macro right.
Also, when playing with your 360 controller how did you type things? Not even is going to want to voice chat 100% of the time. I know I hate it and prefer typing unless there’s a raid or something that needs immediate communications to lots of people. If you need a port to Shat from Org, you’re still going to have to have a way to type that out. You’d have to have some kind of virtual keyboard and those suck to use.