why are there no mmo's on consoles?

[Dodece]

@Cueil

I could not agree less. Sony Online Entertainment is reviled for its standards and practices. I have little doubt that if they were to port the title it would be a cluster fuck of unimaginable proportions. All it would allow is for a pathetic developer to drop raw sewage into a festering wound. I honestly think their future projects for the console are likely major public relations disasters in the making.

@topic

Yes it is possible to play one of these games through a console controller. The real problem is dedicated button usage. The developers are used to having a hundred buttons at their disposal in the form of a keyboard, and they make ample usage of them. When you move to a controller you have to think more along the lines of redundant button usage. You need to start thinking of using buttons in concert in a fluent fashion.

For example on a 360 controller an appropriate hot button system would be to use the right bumper, left bumper, and left trigger as tab buttons. Hold in the right button and hit X, Y, A, B to perform your first four hot key functions. Then the left bumper for the next four, and the left trigger for the last four. You would probably need the right trigger for your voice communication, because type and talk and act is near impossible on a controller. You would need the directional pad for sub menus. Even then for the more advanced commands your talking about tabbing and then hitting buttons a number of times.

Yes it can be done, but its not altogether easy or even straight forward. More to the point players need to be able to access these things on the fly. Any command over three seconds could be a frustration.