Sunday, August 3, 2008

MS wants Xbox 360 MMOs

Shane Kim, head of Microsoft Game Studios, has once again stated his desire to see the Xbox 360 become an alluring platform for MMO developers and gamers.

Shane, who was responsible for the cancellation of the comic-book MMO Marvel Universe on PC and Xbox 360 earlier this year, says that just because Microsoft hasn't done it yet doesn't mean that the console is unsuited to MMO development.

"I'll admit MGS has not had success in the MMO space, and that happened under my leadership, so I take full responsibility. It's a tough and challenging space that's evolving all the time - a lot of shifting sands," Kim told Edge magazine.

"We haven't been able to crack the code yet."

"I think we've made the right decision not to proceed with those things like the Marvel MMO. And that's tough, both for customers looking forward to it and teams working on it. That said, we haven't been successful, but there's nothing to say those titles can't be successful on 360."

Shane then said he knew that the third party developers were being held back by the lack of a default hard drive and the structure of the online service, but promised that Microsoft was looking at solutions to these issues.

"I'm sure we can solve that problem though in a way that is good for MMO developers and customers because we want that content: and we're getting very close. But we're late with that, and we feel bad about that."

Would you play a console MMO, or do you hate the idea of a subscription based pay model? Let us know what you think in the forums.

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