3 Reasons that MMOs Will Never Be Popular or Successful on Consoles

DC Universe Online is currently available on the PC and on the Playstation 3. DC Universe Online will sell much better on the PC and I'm not sure why developers would even bother with making a MMO available on the PS3, Xbox 360 or Nintendo Wii. MMOs will never be popular on the consoles and here are three reasons why.

The first reason that MMOs will never be successful on the consoles is simply the culture of video gamers. Each video game system has their strong points and their weak points that make those games successful at different types of games and the gamers that use those systems tend to also like that genre of video games. Nintendo DS and the PSP are for gamers that like handheld games. Nintendo Wii is for more casual fans that don't mind that the graphics aren't as good as long as there are fun games with the Wiimote. Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 fans enjoy the "hardcore" games. Violent games with a lot of plot and characters, cutscenes that are mostly shooters or action RPGs. PC users tend to enjoy MMOs like World of Warcraft and Guild Wars or strategic games like Civilization and Starcraft.

Mixing and matching these genres with other video game systems is a mistake. Gamers that already own a Xbox 360 users are probably never going to get on board with the Kinect (instead Microsoft is hoping it will attract new owners). The Wii will probably never be a console that is big on shooters (no matter how advanced the Wiimote becomes) because it impossible to make shooters that can match Xbox 360 and Playstation 3. Likewise, Playstation 3, Xbox 360 and Wii users will never play MMOs.

One of the most difficult hurdles that MMOs on the console will faces it he controls. I recently bought an original NES so that I could play some classic NES games. It was pretty wild getting used to a controller that only has two buttons. During one football game I couldn't figure out how to change players until I finally figured out you press A and B at the same time. That's when it brought back memories of what a pain it is to have to press multiple buttons to do a single action. If MMOs were on the consoles then that is exactly what would happen.

Today's controllers are much more advanced than in the NES days but still not advanced enough. When I played Guild Wars on my PC it required almost every button on the keyboard. There are 26 letters so there are at leas that many buttons. Throw in 0 through 9, enter, shift, ctrl, space and that's already up to 40 keys and there are even more than that. Even if every single button on a Xbox 360 controller had a function it would be around fifteen buttons.

There is also the fact that MMOs are played online. Since MMO has the word "online" in it, there should be no surprise that the game has to be played online. Not all Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 owners play online. In the year 2011 most people have internet in their homes but not necessarily a fast enough internet to play a MMO. Some users might have to upgrade their internet if they desire to play a MMO.

Then there are the other users that are encountered online. There are some gamers that do have internet and have a service good enough to play video games but only play the one player version of the game. Or maybe they play online because they are tired of playing the computer, but also don't interact with others and keep to themselves.

In the MMOs I've played that isn't always possible. Often in MMOs it is necessary to join forces with other players (that is the whole idea of a massive multiplayer online game). This can be very difficult for most people to get used to when they first play online. There are thousands of people all around the world playing the top MMOs and it seems less than one percent of them are enjoyable to talk to. In my couple of years playing Guild Wars we always desired a guild of 40 people or so but I don't think there was ever a given time that I liked more than ten people and Guild Wars was a game that it was absolutely necessary to work with others to be able to complete.