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Xbox 360 Version of Champions Online Being Held Back By MS
Tomorrow marks the launch of Cryptic Studios' new superhero MMO, Champions Online. It was developed for the PC and the Xbox 360, but the console version will be much delayed, according to Cryptic CCO Jack Emmert, because Microsoft is holding things up. "Microsoft's a big company, and they have to work out all the various issues related to MMOs. It just takes time for the big beast known as Microsoft to get moving. I really have no explanation other than that, because it's as baffling to developers as it is to everyone else," he said during an interview with VG247. The game itself is apparently finished, but Emmert isn't sure it'll even go live for the 360 by the end of this year. Square Enix developers made similar comments earlier this month regarding Final Fantasy XIV, which will be available first on the PS3 largely because it's taking a long time to work out how the game will interact with Xbox Live.
You must surely recognise that you are on the wrong side of the debate.
The key question here is how will Microsoft Monetise this new games to make more money for XBox Live via the subscriptions that people take out for these games. They don't yet have the sophistication of Apple's App Store for content, subscriptions and upgrades so the choice is either allow more freedom (the Sony choice) or batten it down until you can develop, and enforce, something that ensures the money passes through your pockets.
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
While I agree with those who believe that MSFT will milk this thing for every penny they can... there's more on the table here. Console MMORPG's are a potentially enormous genre -- both in terms of revenue and in terms of audience.
For years now, MMO's on consoles have seemed like a oddly absent category. Where are they? Why isn't _____ making _____ for the _____?
Sure there was Sega's "sort of" MMO, and a few others -- but they were MMO's for the console, not 'true' MMO's.
I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that Microsoft, in some respects recognizes the huge-ness of what this title represents. Yeah, okay .. bring on the Vista jokes if you must .. MSFT has whiffed on the "huge expectations front" before, but a failure with XBL (as a platform) with C.O. would have repercussions across dozens of forthcoming MMO titles.
There's more on the table here than just the release date of one title...
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...to actually require the developer to deliver a complete, bug free, enjoyable gaming experience BEFORE they ship it instead of sometime in the indefinite future.
CO is a very good game, but it's undergoing nearly nightly changes and by the developer's own admission the support for a gamepad controller is only half-baked at the moment.
So no way in hell is the game complete enough to pass the standards of any console game company, let alone Microsoft which has some of the highest standards around.
The standard PC philosophy of "just ship it, we'll patch it later" will not fly in the console world, even if the console vendors are open to the kind of ongoing incremental enhancements that MMOGs are known for.
G.
What would you prefer, that this be rushed through without planning, server load testing, and figuring out exactly how it interacts with existing services?
Or, when it is released, that is works?
I prefer the second.
While I do agree that the lack of a dedicated server feature is somewhat annoying, having the game manufacturer responsible for maintaining the online portion of the game I believe is a bad idea.
It might be the way it's done on PCs where there is no possible central authority, but on consoles there really should be some kind of coordination.
Take EA as the big example of developer run servers. A lot of their "old" online games no longer work online even on the xbox because they demanded to run their own servers. Other games, such as those on the original xbox not by them, still work.