Consolemakers Gamble That The Future Of Video Games Is Online
from the isn't-it? dept
With the very well hyped launch of the Xbox online system, there are a ton of articles today about online gaming. SFGate is running a story looking at some of the challenges to moving games online. The benefits are clear: the potential to earn extra money after the game itself is sold by adding on recurring service fees - not to mention the enjoyment of game players who get to play plenty of different opponents online. However, the costs associated with setting up and running those games puts the game publishers into a different type of business. They're used to making a game, releasing the game, and waiting for the money to roll in. However, with an online game, they need to continually do more work to keep the service going.
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Consoles land of the rising sun..
Now Halo is being ported to the pc, but this however in my belief is that it will not do as well. I don't know theres just something about the X-Box and online shooters that I won't be able to resist. And after all Halo in the words of the Bungie head behind it had said "Halos intentions where to be a more sophisticated shooter directed as a console based video game." These intentions where console based and console based only, and that is why I believe console video games are just as capable of making proper shooters as pc games.
After all I could even argue which shooters are better, since I have the tendency to play more console shooters then I do pc shooters. Only a few ports are flawed badly such as Ghost Recon and the other Redstorm/ubi soft conversions but other then that the shooters are done right for the consoles.
Now moving onto the topic of what online capabilities will do for the video game consoles, is basicially a question to why was it ever introduced into the world of video games. First off the online mechanics was originally used in PC games to create a innovation in video gaming, to bring new life into video games and have people more grasped amongsts its features. Video games in the console world will work just that way, but on machines that primary use is video games. With a console you have the ability to go all the way without much techincal difficulty and allow all people to have an ease with interface with minimal tech problems. With the online features such as X-Box live wich I believe will redefine online gaming like never before, we will see such titles like Halo, and sports games that will break the boundaries. At this point I really don't know how pc games will be able to compare to console games when it comes to online and single or home multiplayer games. The only thing I really can depend on with the pc these days is really Warcraft III and the entire pack of strategy games that roam the pc freelly and will probably still roam it freely unless the mouse and keyboard accessories become popular for the consoles. Other then that If we see companys like Blizzard begining to go exclusive games for consoles, we may see the collapse of pc games and the rise of console games after all pc's wheren't meant to be game consoles.
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