First I’d this isn’t an article just something to be taken with a grain of salt.

What If-

The PC scene has been home to it’s own genre of games that remain just out of reach of consoles, out of all these Genre’s the mmorpg has received significant repute for it’s success and it’s addictive qualities. This genre though pioneered by games like EverQuest and Diablo really gained traction with the introduction of eastern influenced mmorpgs and what would to date seal the deal on this genre being successful would be World of Warcraft.

Nintendo within the console industry thrives on a key strength; they are a hardware and software company in a way that hardware is developed for their specific software and vice-versa. Though they have recently introduced NWFC they are still a product-based company, they gain revenue through products generated and sold.

While companies who focus on MMORPGS are product and service based. The difference can be seen in the success of World of Warcraft as Blizzard has openly admitted that the game may be wonderful but the service is what encourages longevity and growth.

With those two tidbits Nintendo isn’t ready and isn’t positioning themselves to release a product, which places success in service. This leads me to a point and a tidbit of news I bumped into almost a year ago.

The big three began to pursue South Korea in hopes of expanding the gaming industry.

(http://www.forbes.com/afxnewslimited/feeds/afx/2008/07/06/afx5186404.html)

If you’ve noticed the DS has sold within the year (I believe since May) roughly 1.5 million units, granted software sales may be horribly low due to pirating in that region. However the hardware is required to play that software, the companies supporting the DS platform I’m going to mention are Gravity and Nexon. Nexon is a major international service company that has stated an interest in developing games closer to the Nintendo fold, while Gravity to my knowledge is yet to announce any continued work on the Nintendo platforms.

(http://www.digitalbattle.com/2006/12/26/nintendo-partners-with-nexon/)

The status of Nexon to Nintendo is still unknown however Gravity has seen it’s fair share of troubles with it’s diversion of revenue charge I am not certain the situation wit that company but they have settled the lawsuit. Nexon has released Maple Story for the DS and Gravity has released Ragnarok Online for the DS, both of these games pseudo mmorpgs.

What if Gravity or Nexon were to develop (more likely Nexon) an mmorpg on Wii (or perhaps it’s in development) under status of 2^nd party. (I don’t believe they are 2^nd party currently I’m also not sure about the specifics of the partnership.) The push due to the nature of service marketing would be for a very long-term relationship and perhaps spearheading Nintendo into being a product and service company.

I would actually like to cover more about Gravity and Nexon and the push for mobile gaming mmorpgs prior to Nintendo’s arrival however tldr/ prevents me from doing that.

Somehow I doubt it. Nintendo has no interest in large scale online plans. Imagine a MMORPG where you can't see or talk to anybody except people who's friend codes you've inputted. That would be a Nintendo MMORPG. I love Nintendo's games, but they are far too conservative for something like that.

Diablo definitely isn't a MMORPG.

On the other hand I seriously doubt that there will be any MMORPG on this generation of consoles. Ye Ye I know Sony is working on something but that project isn't even sure that it will see daylight.

Diablo isn't an mmorpg, I should of put that in another sentence, I was reffering to the BNet service I figured that would get nitpicked but I thought you guys would of gotten the point.

Huh? Final Fantasy XI and Phantasy Star Universe are both on the 360. Sony has two they're working on and 360 is supposedly getting another three joint ventures with the PC; APB, Champions Online and Age of Conan.

the nearest thing they willevery have is animal crossing

I don't think consoles should try to compete with PCs on MMOs. PCs will always do MMOs better, just because they have a much larger install base and a keyboard/mouse as the standard control scheme. Consoles should focus on what Consoles do best.

I don't think Nintendo want to enter the MMO space, even if they did I don't think their current online set-up would help. Animal Crossing will be the nearest Nintendo go to MMO's for a long time. Besides as Showertea said, consoles should stick to what they are good at.

That's why I was thinking it would either be 2nd or 3rd party, Nexon is still working with Nintendo through their partnership and to my knowledge they are primarily a MMO company.

Also just because it would be an mmorpg wouldn't mean it would be competeing with the pc mmo space.

Also I did point out that Nintendo isn't making any decisions to lead toward the mmorpg space, their company is not set up to profit from service marketing.

Chasing my tail here.

My bad for missing the 360 ones. Me not hearing about them tells about how unimportant they are though. Still, it's a good step towards having some decent console MMOs in the upcoming years.

I find porting PC MMOs to consoles being stupid, theres no chance they could work. AOC for example isn't even working on PC but thats another story.

MMO genre needs to be reinvented for the consoles because some concepts have to change in order for them to have success. Straight porting will never work I believe.