A bit of World of Warcraft news for you this Thursday afternoon. If given the chance, how many of you would play the game on your Xbox 360 or PS3? It doesn’t even matter, as Blizzard’s executive vice-president of game design, Rob Pardo, said that producing a console version of the game would run into a whole host of challenges that would need to be overcome. Chief among them: an input device. Do you go create a specially designed WoW controller, or leave it up to people to bring their own mouse and keyboard?
Then there’s the issue of storage space. A game like WoW can easily take up several gigabytes of hard drive space, something that’s not necessarily guaranteed to be present, either because of the total lack of a hard drive (Arcade model of the 360) or lack of sufficient space. (My Xbox 360, an old school Premium model, only has ~3GB of free space. It makes buying DLC fairly tricky, yes.)
That’s not to say that MMOs can never work on a console. I remember playing Phantasy Star Online for the Dreamcast when it first came out, and that was lots of fun, no hard drive needed (though I did buy the separate Dreamcast keyboard.) All it takes is clever game design to “make it work.”
In other WoW news, you can now buy really well-crafted figurines of various in-game pets.
The whole set—Speedy the Turtle, Stinker the Skunk, and Rocket Bot—costs $74.95. Or, you can buy ‘em separately for $29.95 a pop. These first three are only available till July 31, so you’d better get on it if you’re interested.
via WoW.com
Yeah, I don’t think so. If I wasn’t completely burnt out on WoW already, i’d still be playing it on my PC. Where it belongs. Couldn’t imagine trying to PvP with a controller, let alone raiding.
Morne
“Do you go create a specially designed WoW controller, or leave it up to people to bring their own mouse and keyboard? ”
…. ummm, WHAT? As opposed to people using their own keyboards and mice on their PC?
The PS3 and 360 (and to some extent even the Wii) support USB mice and keyboards, this is clearly a nonissue.
On top of that, they all support on-screen keyboards as well.
“Then there’s the issue of storage space. A game like WoW can easily take up several gigabytes of hard drive space, something that’s not necessarily guaranteed to be present, either because of the total lack of a hard drive (Arcade model of the 360) or lack of sufficient space. (My Xbox 360, an old school Premium model, only has ~3GB of free space. It makes buying DLC fairly tricky, yes.)”
So does Final Fantasy XI Online, a 360 game that REQUIRES 10GB of HDD space.
And so do TONS of PS3 games, many of them not optional. MGS4 anyone? Hell, I even installed FFXI on my PS3.
Has this idiot working at Blizzard even USED a 360 and PS3? Hes clearly blowing out his ass and still thinking of consoles as being from the SNES era.
FFXI is probably a PERFECT example.
PS2, Xbox360 and PC, all versions WORK TOGETHER WITH EACH OTHER FLAWLESSLY! Yes, a 360 game that can talk to a PS2 game! That started out as a PC game!
It can be done, and with the PS3 and 360, it can be done far FAR easier than it can before, he just either has no idea how modern consoles work or is making up BS because he dosen’t want to do it.
Blizzard, like Valve, always has been rather negative towads consoles.
consoles have come along yes but people tend to forget the one thing that hurts consoles .
and its that they are a locked down platform
which makes games like wow challenging to bring to the pc and console market.
god only know what sony and Microsoft would want blizzard to jump through so the game would play through their network .
im not saying it can not be done, what i am saying is that it cannot be done with out some compromises.
some game devs believe (and rightfully so)
that they should not have to compromise to wedge their game into a console box.
believe what you will but designing games for consoles are always a compromise.
and when a game is designed for pc first, then compromised down for a console it is a major PITA especially something like wow. with its tons of text and small widgets all would have to be redesigned for console play.
i highly doubt blizzard are a bunch of idiots and i would not be surprised if their next mmo is designed with consoles in mind so that way like all games these days . the compromise is made on the pc end . so that way it will play on all platforms .
and maybe by then you can play your console mmo .
MS was actually the one that bended over backwards for EA and Square-Enix so their games didn’t have to run on MS’s servers.
And Sony dosen’t require it either.