MMOs and Consoles: a Winning Combination?

Slashdot pointed me to an interview with Cryptic Studios' Jack Emmert, in which he says that Microsoft is holding up the 360 release of Champions Online due to not being quite sure how to handle it (vis-a-vis XBox Live). I wonder if this is another facet of what seems like the on-going 'MMO on consoles not happening' saga. I feel like, given the number of console owners, MMOs should be a bigger presence on them than they are. Of course, there's the complexity of development and all that, but given that "around 90 per cent of the game code is shared between platforms", it doesn't seem insurmountable. On the other hand, that article also notes the complexity of the rules to be followed from platform to platform, which seems to move us towards the xbox problem. Other places have also noted the problem with payment models on other console-based MMOs. I wonder if the console makers are shooting themselves in the foot, or if, given that "MMOs have the 'highest failure rate of any entertainment product'", they'll be just fine even if no MMO ever makes it to their door.

multiple games at once?

There's a great post up over on Tobold asking 'how many MMOs are you playing concurrently'? The comments reveal about what you would expect - a whole lot of 'one at a time' and a few 'more than one', with several people noting (as I would) that it's the subscription that keeps them to one game at a time.

Burning Sea resurgence?

I was over at the Pirates of the Burning Sea blog, wondering what they were up to these days, as I hadn't heard anything in a while. Turns out they planned it that way. In what was probably a very good move if you have the wherewithal to do it, they basically went underground while they fixed all the bugs and such, and are now (like, right now) going to start a new advertising campaign to bring people in. They're also hiring several of people, which is hopefully a good sign.

I have to say I found the game enjoyable, and that's impressive, given that it was the beta I was playing. I just didn't see it replacing WoW at the time, and I couldn't bring myself to do two subscriptions. And now I'm off gaming, for the most part - too much going on in RL. I really wish they didn't have the subscription model - I would love to be able to play some of these games more casually....

echo

Unsurprisingly, I'm not the only one who hates paying too much money. The Ancient Gaming Noob did a post on the subject almost exactly one year ago. He proposes a 'prepaid mobile phone' style plan, where you pay by the hour, month, or whatever, depending on which plan makes the most sense for you. Of course, this could run into the capacity question, since in theory all those people could log in at the same time. But overall I think it's a great idea.

Pirates beta

Tobold just posted that you can get a beta for Pirates of the Burning Sea, but it's through FilePlanet, which is subscription only. I just can't bring myself to do someone's server stress testing for them, and pay for the privilege beside. If my interest doesn't wane, I'll consider it, but I think that's a long time off.