Matrix Games Forums

Hello,

I almost haven't used a game console in my life; however, my younger friends have, and many of them started playing with shooters, which they still use, but now advance to strategy games.

I spoke to one of them about this game and he asked me if it can be played from a console.

I was surprised, for this game doesn't have any benefit from being played with joystick or 10 buttons instead of a keyboard; however, for him it meant that he needed to buy a new computer to be able to play the game, hence my question:

Will it be possible, wether in the release or in the near future after it, to play MWIF from a console? If so, any or some specific one?

I guess it will not be, but why not asking? Maybe I am wrong. [;)]

EDIT: repeated message

The word Console is very general. I could interpret it to mean several different things. Could you provide more specifics?

Not meaning to speak for Joseignacio, but I would expect he means video game consoles such as the Xbox 360 & Playstation 3.

Yeah, I was meaning a game console (didn't know how to say it better in English). I think his is Playstation (2?).

Jose,

I had access to recent statistic on which is the most used platform. Console beat PC by a margin of more than 100 times more players. If you want a game to be a hit you must sell it on game console (PS3, Wii, Xbox). PC game are just a tiny minority.

For your information, most console have keyboard now (you can even send e-mail with the Wii).

ORIGINAL: Skanvak

Jose,

I had access to recent statistic on which is the most used platform. Console beat PC by a margin of more than 100 times more players.

Mmmm? 100 times more players? I hardly believe so, please show your sources.

ORIGINAL: Joseignacio

Yeah, I was meaning a game console (didn't know how to say it better in English). I think his is Playstation (2?).

It is unlikely that MWIF will be ported to a "not general purpose" computer system. That would require geting the program to run under a non-Windows operating system.

As it is MWIF comes very close to tapping out the graphics resources/memory Windows has available. Last week I made a small change which resulted in a small amount of memory not being 'released' once it was no longer needed. In mere minutes of running MWIF that mistake caused Windows to generate an "out of resources" error.

WiF in ipad may be? [;)]

In terms of general gaming users, I wouldn't be in the least surprised to discover the proportions were pretty much as Skanvak described. Certainly game uit sales for concoles far outstrip any PC gaming titles. While I suspect the ratio shifts dramatically when you talk about users interested in a product like MWIF, that is partly due to the average age of the user -- console users tend to be under 30, and the average age is probably closer to 18-20; the average age of the PC gamer skews higher, and the average age of wargames like MWIF is likely higher still - probably closer to 40. (We could do an informal poll on this site if you rwere interested).

Reaching out to the interests of the youth gaming market would likely require investing massively not just in marketing, but also in the graphics/animations side of things, not to mention significantly streamlining the gameplay into something you could run in 6-12 hours, making it an entirely different game. Given the resources available, it's a safe bet Matrix is focused on getting the game into the hands of the existing market, which is predominantly older, PC users.

However, it's pretty much moot: game studios have entire teams of people -- or more often outsource to other studios -- in order to convert their programs to other platforms (including Mac, which I would hope would have been the first new platform considered). It's certainly an attractive idea in theory, but not sustainable in practice with the resources available.

So don't hold your breath waiting for MWIF to show up on your friend's PS2. (BTW, I don't think *anyone* is still doing development for PS2 -- PS3 has been out for a few years now.)

Macs can run the Windows OS so there wouldn't really be a need to port it to the Mac OS.

Game consoles should be powerful enough to run an OS before too long but there would never be much consumer desire to do that I would think. That leaves mega portable consoles (smartphones) which have a ways to go before they could directly run a powerful OS like Windows or OS X, but the vast majority of consumers don't need much computing power just to surf and absorb media content. If you want a cheap (hardware) way to play MWiF, I'd guess anything beyond a bare-bones netbook connected to an external monitor might could probably handle it. Also smartphones can log in to a PC remotely, such as running a favorite program on your PC at home from a hotel room somewhere.....

ORIGINAL: brian brian

Macs can run the Windows OS so there wouldn't really be a need to port it to the Mac OS.

True, but it's a pain having to log into my Windows partition just to run two or three programs. No worries, I'm not expecting anything to happen on this front. I'll just have to suck it up!

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets

ORIGINAL: Joseignacio

Yeah, I was meaning a game console (didn't know how to say it better in English). I think his is Playstation (2?).

It is unlikely that MWIF will be ported to a "not general purpose" computer system. That would require geting the program to run under a non-Windows operating system.

As it is MWIF comes very close to tapping out the graphics resources/memory Windows has available. Last week I made a small change which resulted in a small amount of memory not being 'released' once it was no longer needed. In mere minutes of running MWIF that mistake caused Windows to generate an "out of resources" error.

Thank you, I guessed so, but I wanted to give an answer 100% sure.

Thanks also to all the other comments.

I would like to say that, although the console players could be 100/1 to the computer players (or maybe 10 or 30 to one IMO), 99% of these players play graphic adventures, car crash games, some role playinig games and very few of them, a couple of light strategy games.

No doubt that for hardcore strategy PC userrs are way more. This is probably due not only to the mind age necessary to play these games (we older, did not start in the game world with game consoles), but also the game consoles don't add anything to these games, since the interface is not the problem here.

Maybe in the future, but only if they mean a substantial improvement of the price compared with pc along with offering better results than PC in what it shortly gets short of (after the buy) like ram memory and graphics card.

I have not find the recent stat I was refering too (I reckon that I might have a bit overrated it as they supprised me) but i find ESA stat for 2005

Roughly the ratio is 1 to 4 in number of units (1 to 6 in price) in favor of the console of course (which make 80% console 20% computer)

But I have find another stats in the report that is significant for us : the main kind of computer game is strategy (30 %) where as for console game it is non siginificant at all (does not appear on the stat). I don't know if it is because of a lack of strategy game on console in 2005, or because the stat is about the US market (more strategy game on the japanese market and the past years).

Nevertheless, I think that the sound strategy for developping a strategy game for console is first to make it a hit on PC, at least enough to convince a producer to invest on the adaptation to console. The other way round seem risky (but I know a japanese company that do that for the nintendo console).

It might also be needed to consider that the company that makes the game console wants money for the "licence" to allow someone to port (or make) a game to their console. I once read that it amounts to about 14$ for every sold game. That is the reason that computer games are cheaper to buy than console games.

I thought that console players did not care about strategy titles, at least most of them. Most of console games are shooters or arcade style games.

The Super Nintendo console had a WWII Pacific strategic/operational-level game called P.T.O.: Pacific Theater of Operations which had two sequels (P.T.O. 2 and P.T.O. 4 (IV)) released in North America (PTO 4 on Playstation 2).

I couldn't tell you how well they did.

At any rate, it's at least plausible that MWiF, if it demonstrates sales success on the PC, could be ported to consoles, at least in Japan.

ORIGINAL: micheljq

ORIGINAL: Skanvak

Jose,

I had access to recent statistic on which is the most used platform. Console beat PC by a margin of more than 100 times more players.

Mmmm? 100 times more players? I hardly believe so, please show your sources.

Seriously , you really need a source ?

Just one look at the floor space allotted to PC games compare to consoles should rectify your disbelief.

PC games with in the next 5 years will by a large majority be online purchases only. as for the hobby of wargamming porting over to consoles I highly doubt the publishers have the sales numbers to warrant any console development.

ORIGINAL: Sarge

Seriously , you really need a source ?

Just one look at the floor space allotted to PC games compare to consoles should rectify your disbelief.

PC games with in the next 5 years will by a large majority be online purchases only. as for the hobby of wargamming porting over to consoles I highly doubt the publishers have the sales numbers to warrant any console development.

I know that already, it's the 100 times I find exaggerated. As you or another mentionned the % of wargames on consoles must be very thin.