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Have you been wondering what's been happening about Age of Conan for the Xbox 360? Come on, you were, weren't you? You're all ready to vent your endless barbarian rages in digital Hyborea via Microsoft's premier console, right? Well Funcom have confirmed that it's still definitely in the pipe, and not (for example) stealthily canceled.

While work began on Age of Conan as a console title in late 2006, console development for AoC went on hold while Funcom worked to get the troubled MMOG across the line at launch for the PC platform. Obviously the MMOG hasn't been without its troubles, so Funcom's 2009 release for the console version might not end up being very early in 2009.

Funcom's got a few barriers to overcome for this whole effort. AoC has to keep bringing in the money, which means satisfying existing PC subscribers and bringing in enough new players to offset attrition. Not only does the actual development of the title come with a price tag attached, but consoles feature a little detail called code-signing.

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	Having fun in Conan's homeland? Make sure to check out all of our previous Age of Conan coverage, and stick with Massively for more news from the Hyborian Age!

What is an MMO, and what isn't? There was the central question in a hearty debate in the Massively offices yesterday after some of us watched (or attended) the Nintendo and Sony E3 press conferences. It's an old question, but it's all the more relevant in the context of E3 this year.

At the Nintendo conference, a game called Animal Crossing: City Folk was announced for the Wii. In that game, each player has his or her own persistent town hosted on Nintendo's servers. There are likely thousands of players, but only four players can be in each town at a time. Is Animal Crossing: City Folk an MMO? On one hand, you have thousands of players in persistent worlds. On the other: only four players per world? That doesn't sound very massive! We decided it's not, but what do you think?

A couple of hours later, Sony announced a PlayStation 3 game called MAG, which stands for "Massive Action Game." In MAG, up to 256 players battle over control points in a persistent battlefield. There's even character advancement. Is MAG an MMO? That depends on just how many players have to be in the world for it to be called "massive," doesn't it? You might say that there should be thousands. Then again, some first generation MMOs like Meridian 59 didn't usually have much more than a couple hundred people on each server. Tough call?

Every year it's customary to roll out predictions on what will and won't show up at the current year's E3 event. With Massively heading in the direction of the LA Convention Center already, we thought it might be fun to offer up some likely (and highly unlikely) predictions of what might get talked about next week. In reality, this is sort of a "future of the MMO industry list" as everything on here is more-or-less a current or upcoming trend. The only question is whether any given item will get discussed next week.

Each of those nice images is a link, which will take you into our E3 Predictions Gallery. Don't know who Carbine or Red 5 are? Not sure about Copernicus? If you don't understand one of our bingo squares, be sure to dig down and find out what all the fuss is about. We'll be bringing you all the MMO dirt you can stand next week, so hopefully this will tide you over until then. Enjoy!

Just yesterday we had a discussion about MTV's brush with the brass at Blizzard, in which the top execs noted they don't fear competing with their own 800 lbs. gorilla. The site offered up a followup to that piece, clarifying something we think a lot of MMO-playing console-owners have always wondered about. Yes, we know that World of Warcraft will probably "never" be on a console. But ... do they even talk to the console companies?

The answer is a resounding yes, and Blizz COO Paul Sams says they have a downright friendly relationship with the folks at Microsoft and Sony. Tracey John also asks about the just-confirmed merger between Activision and Vivendi, and the history of Blizzard console ports in the past, and the answers will give you a fuller sense of where the giant is setting its sights. Check it out.

Blizzard Entertainment's Rob Pardo is a bona fide Rockstar in the gaming industry. In his recent keynote speech at the Game Developer's Conference at the Paris GDC he continued to indirectly extinguish rumors that suggested World of Warcraft is coming to a Console, rumors that stretch back years. While not specifically talking about World of Warcraft, when Pardo was asked what kept MMOs from Consoles he responded:

"Lack of hard drive space, and difficulty in certifying patches. Basically just that.... another problem is that they want a piece of the subscriptions (laughs)."

That's a simplistic answer coming from the Executive VP of Design at Blizzard Entertainment, but there it is laid out in plain sight, a truth even if shared in a humorous fashion. Giving Microsoft or Sony residuals, most likely a big chunk is one thing keeping World of Warcraft off Consoles. Is that a bad thing? No, but Blizzard could be missing something here, and just maybe Rob Pardo is plain wrong about what's keeping MMOs away from Consoles. It's simple really...

As much as we like gaming on our PCs, even the most stalwart fanboy has to concede that sometimes the whole process is just a huge pain in the butt. While installing Age of Conan for the first time the other day, this blogger spent no less than five hours downloading the client, patching Windows Vista, updating video drivers, then tracking down a hack to undo the damage down when those video drivers didn't work properly. While there are supposedly a "maze of challenges" ahead with porting the game to consoles, those problems are largely Funcom's and not the consumers'.

This is something that the recently-formed PC Gaming Alliance (PCGA) would like to solve. Rick Carini, CTO of gaming technology at Dell and chairman of the PCGA, posits that this needless complexity is the barrier impeding the continued growth of PC gaming. Even hardcore gamers find themselves stymied sometimes by this. The PCGA is looking to push for standards on the side of game makers and computer manufacturers to ensure that a computer sold as a "gaming PC" should be able to run the majority of games. We're not sure what, if anything, will come of the PCGA's work, but we're hopeful they can develop some sort of standard to bring more warm bodies into the fold.

First floated yesterday, the rumor that Dungeons and Dragons Online was going to be ported to consoles is still flopping around, gasping for breath, yet not entirely dead. According to an article on the Crispy Gamer site, Turbine Communications Director Adam Mersky has neither confirmed nor denied the rumor. He only states that they are working on a console title, whose announcement will come later this year.

Though the article seems to take it as read that DDO is not console-bound, Mersky's comment was not a flat denial, meaning that there is still a possibility that the franchise could find a home on one of the next-gen systems. Is this something that would be of interest? Would the console version's players be able to play against the PC version's players? Time will tell, and once it's been announced, so will we!

[Thanks, James!]

The supposed "war" between consoles and PCs has been raging since the time the great MC Hammer walked the earth, with proponents of both sides taking pot-shots at the other for nearly as long as we can remember. We thought we'd heard just about every kind of comment that could be said between the two sides, but a recent interview with NVIDIA's Roy Taylor has proved us quite mistaken. According to Taylor, the future gaming as we know it is going to be a flip of the trend we've seen over the last ten years ago. Where once PC games served as the baseline and were ported over to consoles, now console games will be the baseline and PCs will be the recipients of enhanced ports. In other words, the end of the PC-exclusive is nigh.

If you just look at MMOs, which continue to drive the popularity of PC gaming, you can see that this is plainly false. While there are a number of MMOs scheduled to be released for consoles, with high profile names like Age of Conan, Champions Online, All Points Bulletin, and perhaps even Dungeons and Dragons, nobody has proven they can navigate the "maze of challenges" that come with cross-platform MMO development, let alone make a profit doing it. And in this blogger's mind, until MMOs officially cross-over to the dark side, it's too early to proclaim the PC-exclusive dead.

Despite predictions that this generation of consoles would herald in the first wave of successful console MMOs, we've really yet to see anything more than scattered chatter and a few announcements here and there. That's why we were excited to hear that Trion World Network, who we found out earlier today are also working on a project with the Sci Fi Channel, announced plans to bring a new fantasy MMO project to the Xbox 360 and PS3, in addition to a release on the PC.

Jon Van Caneghem, creator of the Might & Magic series, will be the creative force behind the game, which we still know precious little about at this point. The comments from Caneghem indicated that the as-yet-unnamed game will have a dynamic world that would change based on the actions of players. No word yet on the scale of the project, whether there will be cross-platform play, or whether there is some sort of development timetable. Very interesting news from a developer/publisher that is quickly finding a place on our MMO radar. And hey, they're hiring!

Age of Conan is not the first MMO to release on consoles as well as the PC. Phantasy Star Universe and Final Fantasy XI were among the vanguards there. Unfortunately, the existing precedents haven't made it look easy. There are a lot of issues to consider. Will Xbox Live (or the PlayStation Network, if the game ever lands on Sony's shores) download regulations prevent prompt bug patching? Will PC users be forced to use voice chat, or will 360 users be forced to buy keyboards? How does one design a user interface that will be equally effective with a console controller and a keyboard/mouse combo?

According to Funcom Project Manager Jorgen Theraldsen, these and other questions have been at the forefront of the development team's thoughts since the beginning. In an interview with MMORPG, he revealed that AoC's combat system has gone through nine iterations throughout Funcom's quest to make it appealing to console users. He admitted that the team still faces "a maze of challenges." At the same time, he assured PC users that the game will not be simplified or held back to make things easier for 360 players. A fine balance, that.

Choosing between the two platforms is probably easy, but many potential players only have one or the other. Funcom will have to keep them all happy if this is going to work. That won't be an easy task.

I've been enjoying my time with Age of Conan, but to be honest there are some design choices -- mostly related to the user interface -- that truly confuse me. I'm forced to decide between scratching my head or pulling my hair out. Although I don't want to tempt fate, so I think leaving my hair intact is probably the best choice.

So here's an example: Did you know about both skill points and feat points? I'm sure a lot of you have discovered at least one of these, especially since the feats have their own tab to click within the user interface. But I'm willing to bet that many of you didn't discover skills right away. The big problem is that there's nothing on the screen to jump out and inform you that some super-important new skill points or feat points are in need of assigning. When did this design document get accidentally knocked off the meeting room table and into the garbage?

It's a question we often ask ourselves, particularly when games like Grand Theft Auto IV sell over 3 million copies inside of a month: what's stopping developers from bringing more MMOs to the console space? If you ask the console makers, they'll say that the opportunities are there for the taking. They're stable platforms, uniformly online-enabled, and they have captive audiences in the tens of millions. So what's the problem?

Joe Ludwig, producer of Pirates of the Burning Sea, explained in a recent blog post that it's really pretty straight-forward. He says that the addition of a platform-owner to the developer/publisher dynamic throws a wrench in the process. Not only do the console manufacturers demand a cut of the already-tenuous profit margins, but their certification processes also slow down the release of patches. Couple that with longer development times and the inherent limitations of voice-chat, and you've got a yourself sticky situation. Will we see successful console MMOs in the future? Undoubtedly. But the prospects of success in the short-term, Ludwig says, are likely slim.

We cover a lot of MMOs here at Massively, but that doesn't mean that it's the only type of game we're interested in. Many of us on the team love to rip into a good console game too, or other PC games of the non-MMO variety. Sure, being involved in more than a single MMO can take up a significant portion of gaming time, but it's safe to say that we do enjoy other types of games as well.

If you've come to Massively, you likely at least have an interest in MMOs, if you aren't currently playing one or more of them -- but is that the only genre of game that you play? Do you like to play any of the current generation of consoles? Or perhaps you kick it old school with one of the awesome consoles of bygone eras? When it comes to the PC, do you only play the bigger games, or do you dip into the casual realm with titles such as Peggle? And what about those nifty handhelds, and cellphone games -- daily commute anyone?

The list of them can be counted on the fingers of one hand: Phantasy Star Online, for the Dreamcast; Everquest Online Adventures and Final Fantasy XI for the Playstation 2; and Phantasy Star Universe for both the PS2 and the Xbox 360. And that's it. The only MMO currently thought to be planned for release on both PC and console (though not at launch) is Age of Conan for the 360. Why is there such a dearth of console MMOs?

Many will say that it's because MMOs are so complex and rich that they cannot be managed with a console controller, and that's partly true -- imagine playing World of Warcraft with a DualShock -- but that's more of a design issue. A game meant for consoles, rather than one ported over from the PC, should have such limitations in mind. There's also the closed environment of the console, which is harder to plan patches for, and the still-in-its-infancy online service for the three major brands. On the bright side, there would be no need to worry about system specs; every player would be getting the same experience. And there could be added value in game achievements, which is a system that doesn't currently exist for PC MMOs.

Are there more reasons against console MMOs than there are for them? Should developers bother with the consoles at all?