How the MMO will influence Next-Gen consoles

It’s in the air, the general call for a new generation of consoles. With the release of the PlayStation Vita and the Wii U this year, 2012 is the beginning of the next generation proper and it’s only a matter of time until we start to learn more about what the future holds, this E3 is going to be one of the most revealing ever and fans of every genre in the industry should be holding their breath for a pretty spectacular show.

Gabe Newell, the now bearded overlord of Valve and the Steam service, said in a recent interview with Penny Arcade that the designers behind the next generation of consoles need to think outside of the box, that they need to embrace innovation.

“It’s not the games that are out there today,” he said. “It’s the games that […] haven’t even thought of yet that are gonna end up being important.”

People dig innovation

It’s a fair opinion and one that’s echoed throughout the internet. Innovation is the way forward, people want to be blown away by sights and sounds they’ve never seen or heard before, they want an experience that they never thought possible and, frankly, these people are going to be disappointed. Because as much as people want new experiences and exciting ways of doing things, what’s more important is to build a piece of technology that’s study, that works well and fixes everything that people have complained about this generation. The PS3 and 360 are by no means on the way out, but both have major issues that can and will be remedied by the time we see the PlayStation 4 and the next Xbox.

Next gen to be MMO generation

Things that aren’t properly doable on a console will be a thing of the past and that’s why I strongly believe that next-gen is going to be the MMO generation. Single player experiences are making way for games set in the multiplayer realm, where friends and relatives can be played with across vast distances and strangers can become enemies in seconds. That’s not to say that the single player game is dying - Skyrim proved last year that that single player games will be around for a long time –
but more and more people want to take their game online and, ultimately, that’ll only mean one thing: MMOs in the most convenient gaming hub – the console.

We’ve seen a little bit of it in this generation as well. Perhaps the biggest example is MAG, the PS3 exclusive shooter that could handle a couple of hundred people in the same game. As internet bandwidth continues to grow, we’ll continue to see the online world develop and, in games like Call of Duty – popular enough to support quick and easy 200 people matches – expect to see a lot happen in terms of the amount of users that can play at a single time. So it seems obvious to say, but the MMOFPS will become incredibly popular, just like its smaller brother has and remains, as developers begin to be able to rely on more powerful internet.

Massively Console Gaming

So there’ll be that aspect to the next console family, the fact that they’ll come equipped with the ability to play with a mass number of players without any issue. It’ll probably be designed with the shooter in mind, but once that framework is there, there’s nothing stopping other genres from making use of the system. As people get more and more used to bigger match numbers, they’ll start looking for more ways to interact with those around them. The current system makes use of messages – voice or text – and gamercards that allow you to see other people’s trophies/achievements, comments, games played and the like, it becomes almost like a game in itself.

The trophy/achievement craze is under no threat, it’s going to stick around for a very long time. Some people hate them, those people are wrong – there’s no downside to being able to judge your progress in a game or show off how far you’re willing to go to get that 100%. The trophy system already has a kind of meta-game around it, granting the user levels and “experience” for each and every trophy you receive. It really wouldn’t surprise me to see the 360 take up a more “useful” game around their achievement system either, and that’s where the MMO influence will come in.

How to keep them playing

As people become less interested in trophies and achievements the console manufacturers need to factory-produce a reason to keep playing their addictive little game. What better way to get people competing than by letting them battle it out on a global scale? Steam, over the Christmas holidays last year, had developers set achievements that gave you vouchers or pieces of coal. The vouchers were usually money off titles but could have been a free game. The pieces of coal, if you saved enough, could be swapped a voucher. Just have an achievement in the latest game that can give you vouchers for money off the publisher’s last game for a limited period and you’ve doubled your sales.

So that would have people competing for “stuff”, but what’s equally important is having people enjoy competing for stuff. Offering local leaderboards, global leaderboards and an achievement community from the dashboard would help you make friends and win trophies/achievements easily. It would be the ultimate social game, with actual prizes to boot. The social side of gaming, the massively multiplayer side of gaming must begin and end with people enjoying one another’s company, and part of that is actually letting them get access to one another.

MMO to be redefined

The next console generation is right around the corner, everybody’s been talking about it non-stop and there’s never smoke without fire. The MMO will play a huge part in the future, going from practically PC-exclusive to an experience that you can enjoy over consoles, PC and even between the two. Games will be cross-platform, the GUI will contain massively multiplayer games and everything we now take for granted is going to get bigger. The definition of an MMO is going to become even murkier as games of every shape and size become playable by thousands of people occupying the same server; PlayStation Home, on steroids.

It’s going to be a slow start and, honestly, I don’t see people being immediately impressed by the next generation. At the heart of it, however, it’ll be that much more connected and we’ll be able to play with people across the world, constantly and in whichever way we choose.

by M. Growcott