If you click on a link and make a purchase we may receive a small commission. Read our editorial policy.

Pads biggest hurdle for console MMOs, says Pardo

worldofwarcrafta2

Console MMOs clearly aren't easy. Which is probably why there are hardly any of them. Why? Blizzard's Rob Pardo reckons the main culprit's the pad.

"I'd say challenge number one is the input device," he told IndustryGamers.

"So if you're going to port a game like WoW how does that work? Do you ship a keyboard and a mouse? Do you try to make a game that [adapts] to all the different controls and buttons? That's a porting issue."

Pardo said that advances in Cloud gaming may overcome some of the lesser tech issues involved.

"The bigger issue would be things like hard drives. I think WoW now is about 10 gigs and we're always pushing out more content. That's something cloud computing could eventually solve, but in the current generation of consoles that's a lot to deal with.

"You'd have to eat almost the entire hard drive, and there are Xbox consoles [sold to consumers] that don't have hard drives. So that's a big issue," he said.

The next major console MMO is likely to be Cryptic's Champions Online, releasing for 360 later this year.

Sign in and unlock a world of features

Get access to commenting, homepage personalisation, newsletters, and more!

Related topics
About the Author
Patrick Garratt avatar

Patrick Garratt

Founder & Publisher (Former)

Patrick Garratt is a games media legend - and not just by reputation. He was named as such in the UK's 'Games Media Awards', the equivalent of a lifetime achievement award. After garnering experience on countless gaming magazines, he joined Eurogamer and later split from that brand to create VG247, putting the site on the map with fast, 24-hour a day coverage, and assembling the site's earliest editorial teams. He retired from VG247, and the games industry, in 2017.

Comments