The Challenges of Porting MMOGs to Consoles

Porting an MMOG to consoles in the past has presented a few challenges for developers. Older generation consoles didn't have the built in support needed for online gaming that the newer generation supports. The walls that separate the console market from taking advantage of the MMOG market are slowly coming down and pretty soon consoles will be supporting a number of MMOG titles. This week we take a look at what's holding back the development of console MMOGs and some of the benefits and drawbacks to porting them to console systems like the Playstation 3 and Xbox 360.

Communication peripherals have been a major drawback in the past for console MMOGs. Previously, there effective way for gamers to communicate in an MMOG world, not to mention the lack of a built in internet connectivity feature that modern consoles like the Playstation 3 and Xbox 360 currently have. Older consoles, like the Playstation 2, required you to buy adaptors in order to access the internet. This was a turn off to some people in an age where online gaming was still in its infancy.