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Jagex CEO hints at why RuneScape hasn't come to consoles

by Jef Reahard on Aug 26th 2011 5:30PM

Fantasy, Consoles, Browser, Free-to-Play, RuneScape, News Items, MMO Industry, Events (Real-World), Business Models, Miscellaneous

Jagex CEO Mark Gerhard is one of the more quotable head honchos in the gaming business, and he didn't disappoint at the recent Edinburgh Interactive conference. Gerhard spoke in no uncertain terms about the difficulties inherent in bringing Jagex's long-running RuneScape browser MMO to game consoles like the Xbox 360 and the PlayStation 3.

The problem according to Gerhard?

Microsoft and Sony. "They said 'we cannot let the Microsoft community play with the Sony community,''' he explained, before offering his response and an explanation as to why RuneScape has yet to appear on a console. "We're not going to frame our community into boxes just for a few million more customers. Of course I'd love a few million more customers, but I just wouldn't do it [...] you almost become the disease you're trying to solve."

Source: Develop
More coverage: RuneScape website

Tags: browser-based, browser-mmo, conferences, consoles, jagex, mark-gerhard, microsoft, mmo-industry, playstation-3, real-world-events, runescape, sony, xbox-360

Reader Comments (23)

So because Microsoft won't let you do it on the Xbox, you won't do it on the PS3.

What logic.

@Jameseh Become CEO of a game company and do it then. Better logic?

@Jameseh

Nope...

Because Microsoft won't let him do it on both the xbox and ps3, he would rather save the resources and time and do it on neither.

@Jameseh
If you were to read the original article, he said:

"But all three said, 'okay, but, we won’t let our console play online with any other'."

Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft ALL refused to let their "communities" play outside of their own silo, and Jagex was not going to create and maintain 4 separate communities.

This is quite funny, so what about FFXI then, the communities of both M$ and $ony are playing together there. Ah the war between these two is ridiculous indeed!

Or what about the FPS games, Call of Duty and Battlefield? I don't play them online, but aren't those all played on the same dev servers, or are they separated by system?

@Khalus

Because FFXI is a big enough title that even M$ was not dumb enough to try and make Square be exclusive. When you can make money for M$ they give you more options.

@Khalus I think they are seperated by system buddy. You can't play with someone on xbox if you are a ps3 user for example.

@paterah They're connected. PS2 and Xbox 360 players can play together, along with PC.

@Khalus

Square has commented that Final Fantasy XI has its features on the Xbox because Microsoft's service was in its infancy and the company hadn't ironed out its policies for games at the time. Suffice to say, post-policy change, Final Fantasy XI would have never come out on 360.

@Raikulxox

Yeah, not sure who told you that but they're wrong. I don't know of a single game on the consoles that allow PS3 and 360 users to play with each other. CoD and Battlefield definitely don't allow it though. (Someone else mentioned Final Fanasty but haven't played).

@Flicktion

People have been playing FFXI together across all three major platforms (PS2/PS3, 360, and PC) since the 360 version came out years ago.

There's not an official PS3 version, but the old PS2 one works on the older backwards-compatible PS3s.

But that's the only one. I imagine Square pulled a lot of strings to get it out.

@Flicktion What? You can. Trust me. In FFXI, players on PS2/PC/360 play together even if they're in dif countries. I played FFXI for 2 years, and had an account on 360 and PC. I played my same character on the same server on both platforms.

@Khalus

Just to add...in order for Square to put FFXI on the Xbox, they had to hack the game to bypass the XBLA network so that M$ wouldn't get hit with any increased bandwidth. This was done with m$ still had interest in MMO's. Cryptic pretty much destroyed any chance of an MMO appearing on 360. Maybe with the new platform, M$ will look at whatever bungie or Blizz create and opt in.

who cares mmos don't belong on consoles anyways its why wow,swtor,lotro are all PC exclusives

@stephen09181981
Because Jagex has done most of the work to cross platforms, and the game itself would work well on most consoles, whereas other MMOs wouldn't. You play RS almost entirely with the mouse, using almost no keyboard shortcuts.

@PhelimReagh I think the fact that the game relies on the mouse so much makes it harder to use on a console. I'm trying to think what the controls would be like, but I have no idea how you'd select targets etc. unless they added a tab target system like WoW I guess, which would be very weird.

@Kaoss The game is click to move. It would be a very simple matter of changing the mouse to a special beacon that you press one button to get the character to mover, another to attack/interact, and another to pick up. Console RTS games have been doing this exact thing for years.

When I played FFXI on the Xbox360, it was actually the third MMO I ever played and I loved it, it was pretty exciting in 2006 to play a MMO on a gaming console. When I played DCUO on the PS3 last , I was again pleased to see how games played on consoles.

I've played a handful of MMO's with my Xbox360 controller on my PC, Vindictus, Dragon Nest, DFO, Black Prophecy and DC Online. I know I can play them with the keyboard and mouse, but controls are pretty solid for me with a gamepad. I could see games that have 30 to 50 quick slot skills/ items being pretty heavy for a gamepad, but lots of new MMO's aren't using so much anymore.

Both MS and Sony have a nice selection of MMO's coming out in the next year or so, I just hope that the future, more PC only games will be on consoles as well and be cross-platform play right from the start.

Microsoft doesn't want to be connected with psn.

and psn by itself isn't worth it.

I sorta half admire his commitment and agree with it, but I half think he's being a bit foolish to let that potential profit go, even if the communities are going to be separated.

Still, it is nice, in this day and age, too see someone take a stand for what they believe in, no matter what.

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Jagex CEO hints at why RuneScape hasn't come to consoles

Reader Comments (23)

Posted: Aug 26th 2011 5:33PM Jameseh said

Posted: Aug 26th 2011 5:44PM theBeast said

Posted: Aug 26th 2011 5:56PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Aug 26th 2011 6:27PM PhelimReagh said

Posted: Aug 26th 2011 5:53PM Khalus said

Posted: Aug 26th 2011 5:57PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Aug 26th 2011 6:31PM paterah said

Posted: Aug 26th 2011 7:02PM Raikulxox said

Posted: Aug 26th 2011 11:01PM Omali said

Posted: Aug 27th 2011 2:12AM Flicktion said

Posted: Aug 27th 2011 1:14PM myr said

Posted: Aug 27th 2011 1:15PM Raikulxox said

Posted: Aug 29th 2011 9:24AM Yellowdancer said

Posted: Aug 26th 2011 6:26PM stephen09181981 said

Posted: Aug 26th 2011 6:29PM PhelimReagh said

Posted: Aug 26th 2011 7:14PM Kaoss said

Posted: Aug 26th 2011 11:27PM Kaoy said

Posted: Aug 26th 2011 7:28PM stamps79 said

Posted: Aug 26th 2011 9:07PM Jack Pipsam said

Posted: Aug 27th 2011 2:20AM Space Cobra said

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