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The Problems With Porting Games
mr_sifter writes "There's a large lexicon of monosyllabic, four-letter words for describing something you don't like — but only PC gamers use the word 'port' with such a fervent degree of repulsion. Common complaints about console ports include meager graphics options, dodgy third-person camera angles, poorly-thought-out controls and sparsely distributed save points. In this feature, Bit-tech talks to developers of games such as Dead Space, Red Faction and Tales of Monkey Island to find out why porting games between the three major consoles and the PC is so difficult. Radically different CPU, graphics and memory architectures play their part, as do the differences in control methods and the rules Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo set about how games should work on their systems."
All the stuff about CPU architectures and rendering pipelines and things falls into the "Hard; but we have smart people who can do that, if EA gives them enough time" pile.
Making an interface that actually works properly on both Mouse+keyboard and gamepad(never mind wii stick) falls into the "squaring the circle with world peace" pile.
Having trouble making a good conversion from pad to keyboard is one thing, but not being able to remap the keys is just stupid.
It's not like linux doesn't run great on high end hardware or anything. So, don't worry about the poor little consoles for a moment and PORT to Linux!!
Yeah, clearly Bungie was stupid for targeting Halo 3 for that crappy 360 and selling 8 million copies in 3 months when they could have gone straight for the Linux gaming market and have garnered 15 sales in a year.
Final Fantasy XI on the 360 allows you to use a USB keyboard as a controller, to include full WASD movement and not just typing messages.