Champions Online for Xbox 360 cancelled

[Lydon]

As I've said before...I just can't see MMO's taking off on consoles on the scale they have on PC's any time soon.

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Another MMO that will not come to the platform

Word has it that Cryptic Studios is now confirming that Champions Online, which was scheduled to arrive for Xbox 360, has been officially canceled. The studio had their full resources dedicated to bringing Champions Online to the PC platform and making it the best title that it could be.

It is interesting to learn that another high profile MMO title has been canned for the Xbox 360. To this day the only MMO title to ever arrive for the Platform was Final Fantasy XI. It seems when you start digging into this, the common thread seems to be Microsoft and Xbox Live. There have been plenty of MMO titles announced as coming, but none ever seem to actually arrive.

What we don’t really know (and it seems no one can answer) is the hush-hush reason behind why neither the Original Xbox nor the Xbox 360 get any MMO titles. Some speculate that it is an issue having more to do with the architecture of Xbox Live than anything else, but those we have talked with doubt that this is the case. From whispers that we hear, it could have more to do with billing and bandwidth delivery costs than anything else. Still, we have trouble believing that these are not issues that Microsoft couldn’t solve.

In the meantime, from the whispers that we hear Champions Online was the best and closest to arrival of an MMO on the Xbox 360; and with it being canned, it is doubtful that anyone will try to invest the resources to try again till something at Microsoft changes. Question is what at Microsoft needs to change to get MMO titles on the Xbox 360?

http://www.fudzilla.com/content/view/18209/1/

[tpex]

Ooh!

PC 1 : Console 0

[tehNihilist]

Ooh!

PC 1 : Console 0

uour starting to sound like a *Cut+Pasted then Edited the highlighted part from another topic. In response for the irony* PC fanboi

I am curious. I heard it was coming to PS3, is that also dead? I assume so.

PC is still the domain of the MMO. That is why I keep it around.

[Lydon]

Not sure on the PS3 bit...but I assume that if they cancelled the Xbox version to focus on the PC version, they'd do the same for the PS3 as they did with the Xbox.

[tehNihilist]

Yeah it is likely Lydon.

Also I wonder why all these companies are 'spazzing' out when it comes to console releases? They promise it, then they proceed to fail. Perhaps game design limitations in regards to console design? Like getting it to work on a controller and such. Maybe they are also not sure if there is enough of a market to take that chance, and are waiting for another company to take the big plunge?

So yeah, I will keep my MMO Machine, I mean PC.

[tpex]

tehNihilist notice the ... means I'm not serous.....

[tehNihilist]

tehNihilist notice the ... means I'm not serous.....

... ... serous!? For SEROUS!
Is this serious? Who knows? Seriously.

[Deceptor]

I just hope that the same thing doesn't happen to Final Fantasy XIV.

[tehNihilist]

I just hope that the same thing doesn't happen to Final Fantasy XIV.

Highly unlikely due to their past works and such. FFXI Online started on console then moved on. They are certainly designing it with a console perspective in mind, and will likely release it on console first, or at least, the same time as PC.

[Lydon]

Yeah it is likely Lydon.

Also I wonder why all these companies are 'spazzing' out when it comes to console releases? They promise it, then they proceed to fail. Perhaps game design limitations in regards to console design? Like getting it to work on a controller and such. Maybe they are also not sure if there is enough of a market to take that chance, and are waiting for another company to take the big plunge?

So yeah, I will keep my MMO Machine, I mean PC.

It's probably due to:

1) Awkward controls, as you mentioned
2) The lack of easy text input, (in the case of the Xbox)
3) The non-willingness to pay an MMO subscription fee on top of the Xbox Live fee
4) Storage space limitations (such as the Xbox Arcade or consoles with smallish hard drives) for necessary installation and patching
5) Developers being required to pay Microsoft, I'd assume, for use of Xbox Live bandwidth
6) Development of patches, once again I assume, being complicated due to different platforms being involved and MMO's requiring regular patching to keep the playerbase happy
7) And, in the case of some newer/updated MMO's like Entropia Universe - hardware limitations

I'm sure there are other reasons too