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Console Vs. PC MMORPG Argument Irrelevant? 60

Posted by simoniker from the flavor-of-box-doesn't-matter? dept.
Thanks to Gamebunny for their MMO game developers round-table, talking with some of the creators of games such as Anarchy Online and Rubies Of Eventide about subjects including the swift rise of the console MMORPG, which provides an interesting response from Daniel McMillan of Frontier 1859: "Any MMO developer would want to reach the largest potential audience. This whole console vs. PC thing is passe. If the consoles get large enough to hold MMO content - they will be more like PCs anyway." He continues: "If anything, I see bundled MMO service networks that are modeled like Direct TV - where you pay a monthly subscription and get at least 5 MMOs. In that case, it won't matter if you play them from a PDA or a console."
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Console Vs. PC MMORPG Argument Irrelevant? More

Console Vs. PC MMORPG Argument Irrelevant?

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  • are really limited by the lack of keyboard and mouse controllers.

    • Re:consoles (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      which you can buy OPTIONALLY for consoles.. while you MUST buy them for pc.. many pc games suck because of poor joypad support.. i hate playing games that force me to learn more than 10+ keyboard combinations... that is the reason why most people like to game with a console instead with a overpriced pc that will be outdated the next month and with games that are in ALPHA/BETA/TESTING stage when they're released.
      • I hardly think that being forced to buy a keyboard when purchasing a computer is a bad thing. I still use a $4 keyboard I bought when I put my computer together about a year ago. Yes, that's right, four dollars. And I have used it almost every day from 4 to 16 hours each day. It works great and has the best feel I have ever experienced in a keyboard. I have even thought of tracking down a crate more of them for use when this one finally does wear out. I would love to see a study where the use of a keyboard
    • I would say that console games are much better. The developer is working for one controller only, so can set up the controls to be much more usable. For example see Zelda: Wind Waker, where almost the entire game is played through 5 buttons.. I'm sure on the PC it would spread over half the keyboard!
      • Good point, until you consider communication with other players. The five buttons may be a beautiful control scheme, having a quick conversation (beyond scripted common phrases) would be near-impossible without a keyboard. I remember trying to do this in PSO for the Dreamcast before breaking down and buying a keyboard to help me communicate.
        • I don't know how some of those people could play without a keyboard in that game. A friend and I would take turns playing our characters with one typing while the other drove. We were actually able to convince some people that there was only one person doing it all.

    • Re:consoles (Score:2, Insightful)

      by wwvuillemot ( 676894 )

      I have to concur that keyboard and mouse are critical for a certain type of MMO. Especially for MMORPG where there are people who actually RPG then I do not see consoles adding value or taking market share. The caveat being unless they become more like PCs -> add keyboard and mouse.

      But my experience -- unfortunately -- playing ShadowBane was the lack of RPG elements. There have been other discussions about the RPG element of MMO going the way of the dinosaur as younger members play more for the acti

      • But as was also mentioned in /. recently, a lot of people see MMOs as a hang-out just as malls were in the 80s. And if so, then the argument for keyboard and mouse is again sustained.

        Not even close. The Xbox and the PS2 both have headsets, which are better than a keyboard for chatting.
        • Not even close. The Xbox and the PS2 both have headsets, which are better than a keyboard for chatting.

          For a small chat, maybe, but the voice model would be inefficient in the MMORPG where I play because of the number of chat channels I "listen to" at once. I typically have a server-wide-OOC channel, a buying/selling channel, and a looking for team channel open at the same time. I often have both vicinity chat and team chat running as well.

          Possible with headsets? Maybe, but the sea of voices would be
      • Perhaps the console manufacturers should look to the mobile phone industry for some pointers here. It shouldn't be too hard to add a phone style keypad to a joypad, and the appropriate software to allow SMS style text input, should it? Considering the popularity of text messaging, particularly in Europe, it would provide an interface familiar to millions, without the need force people to have a keyboard sat on their lap in their living room.

  • News Flash: Day Extended by 72 Hours (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Dachannien ( 617929 ) on Sunday August 17, 2003 @10:30AM (#6716836)
    "If anything, I see bundled MMO service networks that are modeled like Direct TV - where you pay a monthly subscription and get at least 5 MMOs."

    Evidently, Mr. McMillan is under the impression that each day contains 96 hours instead of the normal 24, because that is what would be required for anyone to balance successfully the play of five MMOGs.

    Hardcore gamers will not be satisfied with the amount of advancement they will achieve if they split up their time among five different games (especially compared to their compatriots who focus exclusively on one game), and casual gamers will simply not have the time for more than one (not to mention five).

    • No, I can definitely see his point. Some casual gamers play the game because they enjoy it no matter what level they're at. I was discussing this with a friend. He liked planetside and would have liked to have played Evercrack and SWG but wasn't going to pay monthly fees for all of them after the first month.

      Some people just like a lil variety.

    • Re:News Flash: Day Extended by 72 Hours (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Ondo ( 187980 ) on Sunday August 17, 2003 @01:25PM (#6717794)
      "If anything, I see bundled MMO service networks that are modeled like Direct TV - where you pay a monthly subscription and get at least 5 MMOs."

      Evidently, Mr. McMillan is under the impression that each day contains 96 hours instead of the normal 24, because that is what would be required for anyone to balance successfully the play of five MMOGs.

      As opposed to all those people who successfully balance watching every channel on Direct TV in just 24 hours a day.

      The fact that people can't play all of them is part of what could make it possible to offer multiple ones for one low price. You may get far more subscribers, but each one only uses up about as many resources as a subscriber to an individual game would, so the price could be roughly the same as the price for an individual game.

    • True, but if don't know which game you want to play having 5 to choose from is better than 1. Imangine that you are curious bout online games, maybe have played a couple different ones at friend's houses, but never got into any one. By having 5 you can subscribe for a month, and have 5 games to play with. Eventially you will get into one and the rest won't matter anymore, but the choice is important at first.

      Many people get into their soap on TV, typically at a time when there are 3 to choose from on

    • Theres more than one person in a household, and perhaps they might like to play two as most MMO players I have met.
  • That sound is just millions of fanboys suddenly crying out in terror and suddenly being silenced.
  • "In that case, it won't matter if you play them from a PDA or a console."

    I could be wrong, but most PDAs that I've seen aren't capable of handling any kind of MMO game with any level of success. And in any case, the wireless Internet situation is too screwed up at the moment (multiple standards, uneven cover, huge fees at some access points...) to guarantee a connection to the servers these games require.

  • My anti console argument (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Kethinov ( 636034 ) on Sunday August 17, 2003 @12:15PM (#6717387) Homepage Journal
    These points were taken from my anti console rant [halo43.com]. Note, when it was written console internet was still in its infancy. Some of the rant's points my be slightly obsolete, but the whole thing is still valid. Here's some highlights
    consoles are, in the long run, more expensive than computers. In order to be able to play every single good console game in existence, you'd need to stick with the updates of two to four major makers. Buying that many consoles a year ultimately costs more money than buying a computer.
    Computers are upgradable, consoles are not. Computers have internet connections extending replay value, console multiplayer capacity is limited to just a few people. And to top it all off, computers have many more games available to them. Furthermore, computer internet connections have nearly infinitely more uses than just gaming.
    The rant goes on to explain that console makers should manufacture their own emulators/roms and sell them instead of proprietary hardware. It also explains how a company would in fact make more money off of that business model. Note: even though console internet has been more successful, it's still not cheaper than buying a computer, and computers have more uses anyway. If console makers did start making their own emulators/roms...
    As a result of this, people who only bought consoles to play the latest and greatest games now begin buying computers, further standardizing their use, and computer users who never bought the uber expensive consoles are now buying console games for their computers. The companies now have a larger customer base with an ultimately better product.
    • but there are so many weak points that are made in your rant, to be honest it just seems like you've been burned (kind of like a guy who just got dumped by a hot girl).

      Not a flame by any means, I used to be a die hard PC freak like yourself - I spent a few thousand a year to play the latest and best games, a completely vicious hardware cycle. It became way to expensive, simply put. I was ignorant of consoles at the time and I missed out on a lot of great games because I was a PC snob.

      I have a pretty
      • Actually it's just the opposite. After years of buying the latest console and wasting too much money, I realized how much cheaper and more fun PCs are. If console makers made all their games for the PC through the forum of emulation and roms, then the PC would be the gaming holy grail.
        • Where I live (Norway) the price of a desent playable PC is approx 10k NOK (~ $1000). As I buy this PC, I spend lots of time getting the latest drivers for all my "things" in my PC (if it at all work), and then I spend more time tuning everything. (I hate that). And after 4 years I must spend at least that amount, as my PC has become obsolete for new games. I've tried that and I'm fed up with it...

          Compare that to a game console. I paid 2500 NOK for it (I bought it early, now it is more like 1400 NOK with g

          • Call me lazy or crazy, but I prefer my PS2 to any PC for gaming.

            Sure, that's fine if you're going to play PS2 games only. But what if you want to play Windwaker, Metroid Prime, or Smash Brothers Melee? Now you've gotta buy a GameCube. More money spent. What if you want to play Halo on the XBox? Gotta buy an XBox. What if you want to play a sonic the hedgehog game? Gotta buy a Sega model. What if you want to play Goldeneye 007? Gotta buy an N64. What if you want to play The Legend of Zelda: A Link To The P

    • Re:My anti console argument (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Ondo ( 187980 ) on Sunday August 17, 2003 @03:35PM (#6718391)
      Your rant is wrong all over, but fundamentally falls apart on one point.

      Emulators are slower than native code. By a lot. There isn't a PC available that can emulate the PS2, GameCube, or Xbox. (Yes, the Xbox has a mostly PC architecture. Still can't emulate it because the graphics card and the main system use the same RAM, unlike PCs.)

      To quote from the article:

      people would begin to realize that all consoles are are dumbed down computers that have to be replaced every six months.

      If you tried to write an emulator, you'd realize that consoles are custom-engineered cutting-edge hardware specifically designed to run games, and that a general-purpose computer with roughly equivalent functionality is going to cost far more, and that an emulator requires not just roughly equivalent functionality, but far superior functionality.

      (Incidentally, consoles get updated roughly every five years, not every six months.)

      • Emulators are slower than native code ... If you tried to write an emulator, you'd realize that consoles are custom-engineered cutting-edge hardware specifically designed to run games, and that a general-purpose computer with roughly equivalent functionality is going to cost far more, and that an emulator requires not just roughly equivalent functionality, but far superior functionality.

        Incorrect. Emulator authors spend endless hours reverse engineering the original consoles in order to write the closest

        • Current emualtors are only slower and require better hardware than the actual console because emulators also have to run on top of an existing OS; as well as run while other programs are running.

          This is totally false. You clearly have no idea what you're talking about. You can't have one set of hardware behave identically to another incompatible set of hardware without extra code that takes extra time to execute.

          To quote from your rant again:

          Now, can someone tell me why it seems like I'm the only one
          • Think outside the box for once in your life! Let me make it more clear.

            Let's say a Nintendo 64 is running a 400mhz processor with a GeForce 2 equivelent.

            There's no reason why a 1ghz processor GeForce 4 computer couldn't compile and run the Nintendo 64 bios/OS

            It's just software!

            • Re:My anti console argument (Score:4, Insightful)

              by Ondo ( 187980 ) on Sunday August 17, 2003 @05:51PM (#6719130)
              Think outside the box for once in your life! Let me make it more clear.

              Recognize reality.

              Let's say a Nintendo 64 is running a 400mhz processor with a GeForce 2 equivelent.

              There's no reason why a 1ghz processor GeForce 4 computer couldn't compile and run the Nintendo 64 bios/OS

              There are far, far more differences between the N64 and a PC then there are between different generations of PC. Even an Xbox, which is the closest console to a PC, shares memory between the graphics card and the CPU, which lets it do things far faster then a PC which would have to send the data from one set of RAM to the other.

              It's just software!

              No it's not. It's software and hardware working in combination. Yes, anything that runs on a GameCube could be run on a PC, but performance would suffer a great deal, which isn't acceptable.
              • The performance wouldn't suffer if the software was written properly. The graphics in Halo, Metroid Prime, and Final Fantasy X are not things that couldn't be done on a PC, and they're some of the most graphics intensive console games there are. The only point I'm trying to prove here is that in the long run for the consumer and the makers, it's be better to drop consoles altogether and use computers. With the ever decreasing price of hardware that one would need to run these kinds of games, this idea becom
                • The performance wouldn't suffer if the software was written properly.

                  That's not emulation. It has nothing to do with emulation. That's writing the software for a different platform. As for why they shouldn't do this, I'll just quote your rant:

                  The most common argument against this that development time for games would increase tenfold. After all, consoles are manufactured with very specific hardware and the game programmers only have to write their games for that hardware. Convenient setup, makes gam

                  • That's not emulation. It has nothing to do with emulation.

                    Duh? But there's no other term for it at the moment so that's what I use. The only way you're going to run a "console" game on a computer is through emulation. If Nintendo made their own "emulators" for the PC which would be nothing but a port of their console OS, then it would work just fine.

                    I'm disproving most of your points ... Console hardware isn't becoming cheaper, it's becoming better.

                    I didn't say console hardware, I said hardware. And a

                    • Duh? But there's no other term for it at the moment so that's what I use.

                      It's called "porting". You know this, as you use the word later on in the same sentence. In your rant, you used an actual emulator as an example of why this would be of benefit, so you clearly were talking about emulation. You're pretending Nintendo can get the benefits of porting (decent performance) and emulation (simplicity) at the same time. They can't.

                      I didn't say console hardware, I said hardware. And as better hardware c
                    • Your argument is not invalid, but neither is mine. No one is saying that console OS "porting" (as we shall now deem it :) is easy, but with effort and care and can be done smoothly. And I'll go as far as saying that one day there will be no consoles, other than handhelds. Everything (desktop) computer related whether it be gaming, or slashdotting, will be done under one hardware medium. Call me a visionary, call me crazy, but that's how I see it.
              • Ondo, part of the fallacy of your argument is that you assume these consoles are somehow written/built in such a way that makes its games imposible to emulate - or, rather, not possible to emulate as effectively.

                The accomplishments of consoles are not impressive in any way compared with the PC. Take a look at what they do - they render an image to a television screen, at resolutions as low as 320x240. The XBox has 2xAA, maybe some of the others have similar features.

                I run games on my P4 3ghz + Radeon 98
                • Ondo, part of the fallacy of your argument is that you assume these consoles are somehow written/built in such a way that makes its games imposible to emulate - or, rather, not possible to emulate as effectively.

                  They are. Emulation != porting. If you could pop your PS2 GTA:VC disc in your computer and use it to play the game, that would be emulation. No effort required by the game publisher, and totally impossible right now.
                  • "No effort required by the game publisher, and totally impossible right now."
                    Then ask the question, why is it impossible? Is it because the console manufacturers aren't interested in seeing their "console specifc" games played on another system? They shut down anyone who tries.

                    The PC has superior hardware available. We're not talking about attemping to run UT2k3 on an Apple IIe.

                    Effort is being expended by the publisher (console manufacturer), explicitly trying to prevent this. It's counterintuitive.
                    • It's not impossible to emulate these systems - the only reason we can't do it right now is the the omnipresent threat of the DMCA.

                      Don't argue with Ondo...he is absolutely right. We have emulators for game boys, nintendos, etc, so your DMCA argument is BS. The reason why they can't emulate it was made more than clean in all of Ondo's posts. They are designed spefically for games and are able to run them faster and better than a superior PC could EMULATE them. Current PCs are probably not fast enough to
                    • "Don't argue with Ondo...he is absolutely right."
                      So... I should just take your word for it and shut up? Naw, don't think so. It doesn't make sense to me.

                      Take a look at this 3 year old article detailing the specs of a PS2:

                      http://www.arstechnica.com/cpu/2q00/ps2/ps2vspc - 1. html

                      Take a good, hard look at those 3 year old numbers. Now compare those with current specs (yeah, I'm in a rush, so I don't have those links yet). That comparison was with a P3 (550?) and TNT2 Ultra. In my rig, I have a 3ghz P4 a
                    • Well, you could write your emulator for the PS2 and prove me wrong...but I doubt that will happen. The stuff you are saying makes a lot less sense than Ondo. You are looking at the specs, not how the hardware is integrated. Specialized tools will always be better than multi-purpose tools for the one thing they are built for. I work with super computers. They are great for running weapons simulations, because that is what they are designed for. You would be pretty disappointed with how it performed with
                    • "You are looking at the specs, not how the hardware is integrated."
                      The systems specifications tell me how the hardware is integrated.

                      The PS2's layout is significantly different from the PC of 2000 (not that has changed a whole lot, but bear with me). Instead of having a large on-chip cache, it has a 10-channel Direct Memory Access Controller (DMAC) that quickly access the PS2's two 128MB RDRAM main memory banks with its "high speed" (quotes because I don't have a number for this) 16-bit bus.

                      The PS2 also
                • > Take the popular PS2 game GTA:VC.
                  > It's rendered at 320x240 (correct me if
                  > I'm wrong here

                  You are -- it's rendered in 640x448.
  • I'm not the first to say this, but consoles need a serious way to deliver patches. This most notably affects the GC and PS2 as xbox live does support patches, I believe. Go play Socom if you'd like to see how the future of MMO games might just end up on consoles.
  • Sony, via their Station.com service, already offers a MMOG bundle. You can pay one price, approx $25/mo iirc, and get access to every premium Sony game, including Star Wars Galaxies, Everquest, Tanarus, Cosmic Rift, etc.
  • Ok, this is a little off-topic - but Anarchy Online and World War II Online are two great examples of how *NOT* to release MOGs. And while there wasn't the same sort of problems with Rubies of Eventide (that I know of; does anyone play this game? I gave the trial a shot, but it was just... flat), it's not exactly expected to be wildly popular.

    So why ask these people what they think? Their products are riddled with problems - not the ideal place from which to draw knowledge, unless you're asking them wha

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