D
DArtagnan
Guest
There are no strategy games on consoles simply because their CPUs are not powerful enough to handle this type of game. The hardware also cannot handle multiplayer titles with dozens and dozens of players onscreen at once, or all the hundreds of thousands of persistent data objects in a huge MMORPG game world, not to mention how much easier it is for MMO developers to program backend systems on a platform like Windows. It's also great to have a UI that works with mouse and keyboard or keypad/numpad, but it's not the primary reason there is no Civilization V on Xbox, for example.
Considering the next generation consoles will be based on 64-bit PC architecture, with significantly more RAM and faster processors, it seems likely to open up more possibilities for multiplayer titles and MMOs, as well as strategy games.
I'm sorry, but we completely disagree here. WoW vanilla ran on a toaster - and it's not how many players are on screen at once - it's about combined polygon count/visual effects, network handling and how you visualise other players. Something tells me you don't know too much about what you're talking about - because all the persistent data is handled server-side, and the client is simply receiving only what's relevant for whatever area the player is in. The load is high - but it's on server side, and that's why you can't drop objects in the vast majority of MMOs - because the client would have to receive a shit-ton of information on a constant basis, and the data load would be enormous.
There's no reason an optimised MMO couldn't work very well on the Xbox and the PS3 (aside from UI issues) - and you already have examples of what you claim to be impossible in games like the Final Fantasy MMO and the DC Heroes MMO.
As for strategy games, they can be among the least demanding of all genres - especially turn-based strategy games, where the AI is inactive during the player turn - and there's no good reason to have too many fancy effects during play. This is why you have a zillion strategy games on the iPad - for instance, unless you want to claim that's more powerful than a modern console?
Even a sloppy developer like Firaxis managed to put out a reasonably complex strategy game called X-Com recently. We're talking about developers who opt to use elaborate 3D engines for designs that are basically tailor made for 2D stuff. Like the Civ games - their stuff tends to be EXTREMELY badly optimised.
Also, there are MMOs on the iPad - and a surprising amount of players are active.
Sorry, but you simply don't have the knowledge necessary to make these claims.