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MMOs have had minimal penetration in console gaming; a huge contrast to the genre's flourishing success in PC gaming. Part of the reason, perhaps, is because this is the first generation of consoles that have the sufficient power, connectivity and security to actually pull it off.
Before this generation - the PlayStation 3, the Xbox 360 and the Wii - there were few MMOs to make a mark on console history, two of the most notable being Final Fantasy XI and Phantasy Star Online.
FFXI enjoyed some measure of success on the PlayStation 2, but it was not until the game was released on the Xbox 360 that it really flew off to achieve its current level of popularity. Before Final Fantasy XI, the MMO genre in consoles was non-existent.
Today, MMO games for consoles are looming. Four different MMORPGs from NCsoft are set to come out for the PlayStation 3 this year. Sony itself is preparing to launch new titles on the PlayStation 3: The Agency, an MMO Shooter, Free Realms, a new MMORPG, and a new DC comics-based MMORPG using the Kynapse AI engine.
Let's not forget that PlayStation Home is ramping up for release. Basically an MMO real-life simulator, Home is set to be the homebase (pardon the pun) that will feature mini games, like game tie-ins of gaming shows. Who knows what else Sony has up its sleeve for Home.
The Xbox 360 and the Wii may have a harder time acquiring MMO titles. MMOs will most likely require a hard drive, which the Wii and the Xbox 360 Core lacks. The Xbox 360 Arcade's 256 MB memory unit probably won't be able to support the requirements of MMOs either.
Some Xbox 360 games that were released already require a hard drive though (like Burnout Paradise which requires an HDD for full online play). FFXI requires a hard drive, and it's quite popular, so MMOs thriving on the Xbox 360 is more likely than on the Wii (unless Nintendo finally decides to release a hard drive for the console).
Blueside will be releasing a multiplatform MMO for the PC and the Xbox 360: Kingdom Under Fire: Dominion, the sequel to their Xbox title, Kingdom Under Fire: The Crusaders. It is not yet known whether the game will require a hard drive.
Taking a brave step into a largely unexplored region, Dominion will be classfiied under a genre called MMOARTS (massively multiplayer online action real-time strategy). Not much details have been revealed for the game, but it sounds (and looks) pretty good.
The lifespan of each console may be a point of concern: could MMOs survive even longer than their host platforms? Let's take FFXI as an example again; the game was able to make the hop from a Sony console to the Microsoft one which proves that MMOs can transcend the host platform. Should the current generation see the end of their lifespans, MMOs will just migrate to the next generation.
So this generation of consoles could set the stage for MMOs, and they are indeed coming. NCsoft president Chris Chung once remarked that it was inevitable. Only time will tell whether they will have the same level of success as the MMOs on the PC.
But to approach it from a different angle, MMOs are just part of the natural evolution of video games. The more powerful each generation of consoles get, we get more interconnectivity. We only started out with single player games back in the 8-bit days.
Eventually consoles got powerful enough to support co-op, and then multiplayer. The evolution to MMOs is simply the next step. Chances are, consoles will take to it like fish to water. Here's to the rise of MMOs in consoles.
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