Ubisoft wanted PS3 & Xbox 360 owners to battle online over Endwar
Imagine having battles raging online between PS3 and Xbox 360 owners. No, I’m not talking about the usual debate caused by another article here on Blorge, but rather a proper battle, with real victory and loss.
Online gaming is rapidly becoming one of the most important facets of the industry, with gamers on all consoles demanding some form of online element for their system, and the chance to battle complete and utter strangers. So far however, owners of each console have only been able to battle other people who also own the same console. Ubisoft wanted to change all that with Tom Clancy’s Endwar.
Endwar, based on one of Tom Clancy’s novels, yes, yet another one, is currently being developed by Ubisoft for a release on both the Playstation 3 and Xbox 360 in October or November.
At the Ubidays event last week, Julian Gerighty, editorial content director at Ubisoft Shanghai, spoke to VideoGamer about the development of the game, and there were a couple of interesting insights to note.
Firstly, Gerighty revealed that the development team had wanted to make the game cross-platform multiplayer, enabling gamers on both the PS3 and Xbox 360 to play off against each other. He said:
“I wish we could play cross-platform. That would be nice. It’s impossible. Sony and Microsoft don’t like speaking to each other.”
This is something that I’ve never even thought about as I always assumed it would be impossible, not only from a technical point of view, but also because of a lack of co-operation between Sony and Microsoft. The thought of it now though fills me with a mixture of dread and excitement. I can imagine the battles getting quite nasty as they possibly turn in to fanboy kudos fights.
Though it’s not now going to happen with Endwar, maybe we’ll see it happen in the not too distant future.
The second nugget of information to come out of the interview was an admittance that porting the game over from lead console development on the Xbox 360 to the PS3 was fraught with early difficulties. Gerighty said:
“The way we’ve developed it was with Unreal 3 and we found it a really great fit with Xbox 360. PS3 team had a little trouble at the beginning but they’re doing really well now. The lead version is the 360. They’ll be identical when they finally launch.”
“There’s a whole separate team of another 80, 90 guys working on it. It’s really decent. And all they have to do is port it. It’s a big team.”
It remains to be seen whether the versions are truly identical when they are released simultaneously in a few months time. Lead consoles tend to always get the slightly better version of a game purely because that is the format which the developers learn how to get the best out of.
If the port is screwed up, even with a team of 80 or 90 guys, then the Playstation 3 owners desperate for a bit of Tom Clancy action aren’t going to be happy, though I’m sure the baiting they’ll receive from the jubilant Xbox 360 owners will help considerably.
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16 Responses to “Ubisoft wanted PS3 & Xbox 360 owners to battle online over Endwar”
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June 4th, 2008
Now this would make a good battle ???
June 4th, 2008
it would be an interesting battle! i wish they could do it to GRAW 2
. how would it be done though?
June 4th, 2008
The ultimate extension of fanboie blog wars! Shut up and take it online. There would be recruiting, and teams formed, and teams would have their own fans, and there would even be infiltrators teying to figure out how to hack an X360 so they could get on a PS3 team. When you start to think about all the social and web impacts this could have, its seemingly endless what could develop! If Sony and MS won’t make it work, why not some 3rd party? Imagine a console agnostic version of Steam! Can I get a boo-ya!
June 4th, 2008
Why would Microsoft let hackers into xbox live?
Microsoft haters would love to take advantage of such a stupid stupid idea. No way this is gonna happen because if xbox lets online happen without live = hackers or Sony without live = hackers. Its mind candy all right… for all the people with bad intent.
June 4th, 2008
“And all they have to do is port it.”
Yeh, we know that is just so easy. EA showed everyone that with the Orange Box.
June 4th, 2008
That’s a shame, I wanted to make Spidey my bitch too!
June 5th, 2008
Bring it winner….. If i had the extra dollars, I would get a 360 for halo and match ya
Can the 360 play the original Halo and Halo 2?
I used to say I would get a 360 for bioshock, but it seems I don’t have to do that anymore…yay !!
June 5th, 2008
To be honest, I’m not sure if you can do the online thing with Halo 2 on 360, I haven’t tried. But I do know that the single player games definitely work.
But hey, if you’re still posting on this thing by christmas, and if the PS3 gets a price drop, i’ll probably end up getting a PS3 by then. So I’ll be able to whoop you in Resistance!
June 5th, 2008
That would be pretty embarressing, I’ve had a fair bit of a head start with Resistance…
June 6th, 2008
Hmm..in that case, wanna team up?? haha
June 6th, 2008
By the time you get (if) a PS3, Resistance 2 might be out ?? We can fight it out then eh ??
(Oh by embarressing, I meant for me, if you won..lol)
June 7th, 2008
Sure, if I wind up getting one we’ll definitely have a go.
And let me know if you get a 360, we’ll destroy 12 year old smart arse French kids in a death match together! haha
June 7th, 2008
spidey whats your psn resistance name? i’m on resistance quite a lot, love it. i’ve probably seen u round.
June 7th, 2008
Love to take you up on the offer winner, but I’m pretty short of funds, so getting a 360 will be “quite” some time off…. Unfortunately.
PSN – “Spideydog” (without quotation marks) I haven’t been on resistance for a while cause I’m playing other stuff. But I will probably go back to it soon, because I now have DS3 and can replay it with rumble baby yeah…..
June 8th, 2008
oh awesome i’ll look out for you next time im on, im getting a bit tired myself of glitching, and when i want to play properly, being owned by glitchers
June 8th, 2008
i doubt this is gona be a good game anyway cause ubisoft really sucks ass. after EA they are the worst publishers.