Persistent world gaming and consoles

With the steady improvements in online architecture for consoles, It's a bit surprising that they haven't had an MMO boom like what happened on the PC a while back. With the number of new titles coming out or still going strong after several years it's clear that this field is still fertile, so why are Squeenix and a handful of others the only ones plowing there?

Meh, I think the bulk market that consoles gather are short term investment casual gamers who probably aren't as interested in the time it takes to do an MMO, or a subscription fee.

Not to say there aren't people who own consoles who wouldn't be interested, I own a 360 myself. But most console gamers who would be interested happen to also have PC's they game on, and then the rest of the MMO market are PC Gamers who aren't as big on consoles.

Just my hypothetical guess. Plus I haven't seen an MMO for console yet that I haven't thought sucked.

I figured World Of Warcraft isn't on the 360 yet because of Microsoft's XBL, it would suck being billed by two companies for one game so maybe Microsoft doesn't allow it because Blizzard won't make it free-to-play?

Also, who on TV Tropes is such a big W 0 W freak that they coded the pothole to not only pothole the abbreviation, but italicize it!? That's like one of those fanboys that you just CAN'T WAIT to punch in the teeth, man.

edited 5th Mar '11 5:41:05 AM by chocoboxxx

Sturgeon's Law applies for the PC MMO market but the pool is also massive enough that there's at least one good title for most preferences.

I never considered that angle. I guess we need to wait for non-proprietary networks to pick up first. Maybe a console WWW.

I think Fast Eddie did that.

edited 5th Mar '11 5:47:50 AM by Sabbo

I apologize profusely. 0_0

Yeah about Massive Online Games having continual fees. There's your answer...wait a second.

Massive world, online, role playing game? Oh please, Pokemon is all of those things with the added bonus of being on a hand held. The console market's been doing better than World Of Warcraft for a decade.

Massive in MMO doesn't mean "Massive world" it means massive as in "a fucking shitton of players (we're talking in the hundreds) can be on one server at any given instance of time".

Pokemon does not do that (yet). Sorry.

The field isn't empty. Problem is that it isn't exactly half-full either. It should be possible to achieve massive success there, as that Pokemon example should demonstrate if we count it (I was going for World Of Warcraft/RO/lots-of-other-Korean-stuff type games, or FFXI/FFXIV/Phantasy Star/Shadowrun if we focus on consoles). If I could see that it wasn't profitable I wouldn't be surprised by the lack of massively online titles.

It IS profitable, so why aren't there more titles? (excluding the reasons already given)

edited 5th Mar '11 2:56:11 PM by Recon5

Coming from the demographic willing to pay for XBL Gold, that's pretty rich.

Eric,

It's pretty hard to chat via text using a controller.

Well, technically, there are a couple MM Os on consoles this generation. You didn't see them much before now, because the prior generations didn't have modems. As for why they haven't taken off now? Probably a variety of factors:

1. Most MM Os are designed with keyboard and mouse in mind, this makes ports tricky

2. The aforementioned issue of who charges fees for which

3. Online access in the target market ( probably everyone who games on P Cs has internet access; not everyone with a console connects it to the web )

4. PC lacks licensing fees

Is it impossible for an MMO to succeed on console? Probably not. . . but I suspect the most successful MM Os will remain on PC, if only because the most successful MM Os are *already* on PC. Probably everyone who has a console has a PC, which forces the choice- "Do I go with the new, unproven, content-limited, buggy MMO on my console, or go with a long established, well-developed MMO on my PC?"

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