Console MMOs

Moshtradamus

 

Ok guys help me understand something. My only computer I have is a macbook core2duo from 2007. It just cant do mmo's. I tried, amazingly managing to get a rogue to 74 on world of warcraft. When I finally was of the level to start raiding (the whole reason I started playing mmo's), FPS dropped below 5 and that was that. I let my sub run out and dealt with the fact that it just ain't happening.

Now I have a perfectly capable gaming computer sitting on my desk next to me, also know as the Xbox 360 elite. It has a massive hard drive, high end graphics output, voice communication, and is actually fairly reasonably priced, compared to pc gaming rigs. Why is it nobody has put out a solid MMORPG like WoW or Lotro for the 360 or PS3? Do these game devs, Microsoft included, not see a potentially huge market for this? With usb ports on the front of the 360, why aren't there keyboard and mouse peripherals? This seems like something very simple to accomplish, hell I would even pay a subscription fee including xblive if the game was good enough. 

I'm positive I'm not the only person to have thought of this revolutionary idea, so what gives? Unfortunately I'm sure in the end it all boils down to the $$ and who is getting it.

 

 

 

ChrisMattern

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Originally posted by Moshtradamus
 
Ok guys help me understand something. My only computer I have is a macbook core2duo from 2007. It just cant do mmo's. I tried, amazingly managing to get a rogue to 74 on world of warcraft. When I finally was of the level to start raiding (the whole reason I started playing mmo's), FPS dropped below 5 and that was that. I let my sub run out and dealt with the fact that it just ain't happening.

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Then you were misconfiguring something. MMOs are notable in being very easy on the hardware requirements (unlike FPSes). WoW first came out in 2004 and wasn't notable for straining hardware even at that time. You must have been trying this with all the graphics settings turned up.

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Now I have a perfectly capable gaming computer sitting on my desk next to me, also know as the Xbox 360 elite. It has a massive hard drive, high end graphics output, voice communication, and is actually fairly reasonably priced, compared to pc gaming rigs. Why is it nobody has put out a solid MMORPG like WoW or Lotro for the 360 or PS3?

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*Ahem*. Final Fantasy XI, perchance? (can't play it on PS3s that don't have PS2 compatibility, though)

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Do these game devs, Microsoft included, not see a potentially huge market for this? With usb ports on the front of the 360, why aren't there keyboard and mouse peripherals? This seems like something very simple to accomplish, hell I would even pay a subscription fee including xblive if the game was good enough. 
I'm positive I'm not the only person to have thought of this revolutionary idea, so what gives? Unfortunately I'm sure in the end it all boils down to the $$ and who is getting it.
 
 
 

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Saorlan

I think a lot of companies are planning XBox MMO releases inconjunction with a PC release. The stumbling block seems to be getting the PC and Xbox versions to match.

I have not heard of any MMOs specifically for the Xbox though. 

Teiman

The consoles are substandard hardware. Most have less memory than my USB Pendrive. ( the Xbox has 512, and the PS3 as only 256 MB) are mostly toys to play dumbed down (as oposed to full) games.

Maybe future consoles will include some minimal hardware as *standard*, like 4 GB of ram, and a 250 GB harddisk. But today...

WarpVis

There are efforts underway to bring MMORPGs to consoles. DC Universe Online is in development for the PS3 as well as the PC. From what I read there are some issues as to how to set up the upgrade patches and some other minor hurdles.

Often stated but simply untrue is that consoles will require the dumbing down of games. While the consoles would definitely be considered lower tier, they easily match up capability wise to the lower end PCs that a vast majority of developers are already trying to include in their target audiences.

The amount of memory of the consoles is a little misleading due to the nature of their architecture. These machines are designed for optimal game performance. So while the PS3 only has 256MB of XDR memory it makes for it with use of the Sony, Toshiba, IBM-designed Cell microprocessor as its CPU, which is made up of one 3.2 GHz PowerPC-based "Power Processing Element" (PPE) and eight Synergistic Processing Elements (SPEs), seven of which are used.

Graphics processing is handled by the NVIDIA RSX ‘Reality Synthesizer’ with 256 MB of GDDR3 video memory and shares a lot of inner workings with NVIDIA 7800. Yet again while this is far from the top end it does fall within the capabilities of lower end PCs that most developers have as part of their target audiences.

Dewm

 

Well FFXI is on the console (360 & PS2) and it rocks on both.

 

 

And Mac's suck for gaming. (I know flame war here we go) and this probably isn't 100% of your problem, but yeah....macs suck.