14 DAY TRIAL // Turbine Inc. has created a very robust MMO in The Lord of the Rings Online and the expansion, Mines of Moria, which it put out for it. The game never got to the same level of success that Blizzard's World of Warcraft achieved, but it has done well enough to warrant another expansion and to allow Turbine to work on other projects on the side.
Speaking at the GDC in Austin, Craig Alexander, who is the vice president for product development at the company, offered details about how MMOs could be the next big video-game genre at the moment to reach current-generation gaming consoles. He thinks that both the hardware requirements are there, from storage space to the easy-to-connect online communities, and that players might be ready to move to consoles for their massive-multiplayer game time.
He cited the success of role-playing titles like The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion and Fallout 3 as evidence that, at that point in time, it was easy to use a rather complex interface on the PlayStation 3 and the Xbox 360 and he also said that MMOs had something to learn from the way the transition of the first-person shooter had been made from the PC to consoles.
Alexander was saying that any console move would likely overlook the Nintendo Wii, which was more similar to the last generation of home gaming consoles than to the Xbox 360 and the PS3, and that players would likely not be able to enjoy cross-platform play for MMOs, mainly because of possible issues related to the connectivity and to the stability of such a gameplay.
Still, Turbine remains committed, to the point of Alexander saying that, “In many respects, we're betting the company on it,” to bringing MMOs to consoles. It's not clear whether the first such project will be a version of The Lord of the Rings Online or whether the company aims to introduce a new project after the Siege of Mirkwood expansion is released.