Profile: Hokie
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• • General: GDC: The Future of MMOs - Consoles?

  • Like many said before me, not everyone is going to want to talk live.  Yes many consoles can have keyboards and mice plugged into them making them virtual PC's.

    I  play almost MMO's exclusively, and I wouldnt mind the idea of sharing with console players. But programing future MMO's for console only is something SoE would come up with. (ahm yes that was a slam)

    The console market is what about 80% 13-23 year olds, while PC gamers average is about the same 80% 21-38 years old. with about 13% under 20. That is a big market of gamers that if they went exclusive console or primary console that they would lose (I'm one of them).

     

    And good example of a great game but shitty interfacing is Elder Scrolls Oblivion. Stunning graphics, stunning world, and a totally fucked up interface because it was designed primarily for a console. I found it so clunky and clumsy I didnt  bother to finish the game. And truth to tell I may skip their next one if the interfacing is as horrible as Oblivion was.

    Now as we all know information you find on the internet could be wrong, but I found out some suprising facts about Oblivion sales. We know that Bethesda sold 1.7 million copies of Oblivion. And as best I could find only about ~250k of that was to consoles (information 2 months after initial release). That means ~1.4 was sold to the PC market. Now Bethesda will not officially release sales totals and break downs. But that is a shot in the foot for consoles being the "medium of choice" for MMO's.

     

    I think Rob Pardo understands that the PC will always be the primary income source for MMOs. I cant  for 1 second even believe WoW would have 10 million monthly subscribers, or even a 10th of that if it was designed primarily for the console.

     

    Then again all we'll have to do is wait about 2 more months and see who gets the bigger share for  the Age of Conan MMO. My guess is by month 6 after release PC's will have around 80% of the subscriber base (or more).

     

    Cryptic Studios has hinted that its new MMO "Champions Online" maybe designed primarily for the console. Now I cant find the quote...figures. It was somewhere of their sites forums. I think its a big mistake and once I read that I started second guessing whether I would even want to deal with a console to PC port, especially a MMO.

  • Posted: 2/27/08 4:32 AM
    General Discussion