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Sony Online Boss Thinks NGP Is Perfect For MMOs

by Phil Kollar on Apr 06, 2011 at 02:00 PM

Sony Online Entertainment's kid-friendly, free-to-play MMO Free Realms (pictured above) just landed on PlayStation 3, but if SOE president John Smedley has anything to say about it, the PS3 won't be the only destination for future MMOs from his studios.

In an interview with GamesIndustry.biz (via Eurogamer), Smedley revealed that he has his sights set on another piece of Sony hardware for future free-to-play SOE titles:

"...and by the way not the just the PS3, but in the future I can see other devices. Sony's announced the NGP, and if that isn't a perfect machine for doing MMOs on, then I don't know what is."

Smedley went on to explain that he believes it's "only a matter of time" until console developers embrace the free-to-play idea of giving away your game but charging for add-ons. "It'll just be in addition to the Blu-ray business model," he said.

We've yet to see a full-featured MMO on a handheld, and certainly Smedley is correct that the NGP is one of the most powerful handheld devices we've ever seen. But even if you can get an MMO up and running, would it be fun to try to dig into such a huge, complex game on a handheld?