Is there any reason to own four PS3/360 controllers anymore?

[Zantos]

PSN is free, if I am not mistaken, so the following only applies to the XBox.

Consider this: XBox Live is a feature for which you shell out money consistently to get Gold status and to do more online. If a true AAA game came out that allowed off-line play, Microsoft would lose a nice chunk of change in revenue from their services, because (quite frankly) there are a good number of people who would prefer to play off-line with friends for free than play on-line for money. So (and mind you this is just a far-fetched assumption which may or may not actually be far-fetched) Microsoft probably pays the AAA developer studios some fraction of that revenue to keep off-line play to a minimum. After all, both Microsoft and the developer studios are businesses, and businesses have money at the top of the priority list.

/rant

Actually I'm inclined to think it's the other way round. You pay Microsoft for basic upkeep and moderation so they're happy, whereas Sony pay it out of their own pocket. If people move to entirely offline play in such a way that both services become obsolete then Microsoft has invested much less of it's own money into the service, whereas Sony has invested all the PSN money itself and it's a much bigger drop.

 

[Something Amyss]

The guitar hero Rock band games use regular controllers too..

Only for microphone on the latest ones....And for NONE of the Rock Band titles otherwise.

 

[Something Amyss]

PSN is free, if I am not mistaken, so the following only applies to the XBox.

Consider this: XBox Live is a feature for which you shell out money consistently to get Gold status and to do more online. If a true AAA game came out that allowed off-line play, Microsoft would lose a nice chunk of change in revenue from their services, because (quite frankly) there are a good number of people who would prefer to play off-line with friends for free than play on-line for money. So (and mind you this is just a far-fetched assumption which may or may not actually be far-fetched) Microsoft probably pays the AAA developer studios some fraction of that revenue to keep off-line play to a minimum. After all, both Microsoft and the developer studios are businesses, and businesses have money at the top of the priority list.

/rant

Conspiracy theories: Now on console, too!

 

[Fiad]

I think the most any person needs is two, most of my friends around here also have at least one. So if we have a get together where gaming will be involved we just pool our controllers. We just find out how many people/xboxs are going to be there and then plan who brings controllers. A lot of the time we each just end up bringing one for ourselves, possibly a couple extra for forgetful people. Well except the one guy who has a PS3, he has 4 controllers.

 

[MercurySteam]

This is another thing that has been getting to me about our current generation of consoles. Barely any new games support four-player splitscreen anymore mainly due to the lack processing power that the consoles have. Hell, four player splitsceen doesn't even exist as the only game I know of on the current generation of consoles that can have four 'split' sceens are Halo and CoD. Halo games only support custom games on four player splitsceen (no four player splitscreen for campaign coop or Firefight) and it's saddening that I have almost no other games that support four controllers on one console. Apart from my Halo games, Mortal Kombat, DOA4 (shite game, anyway) and obviously Rockband and Guitar Hero I have no other uses for my four controllers.

It's sad, really.

 

[Jamster003]

You could always play timesplitters with your friends.

The main reason we don't have many splitscreen games these days is because of technical limitations, the systems simply can't run most games 4 times simultaneously with the exception of a few games.

I can see it now.. "Back in my day we actually had to see each other for multi-player, and I don't mean with webcams."

 

[Lilani]

Is there?

Am I the only one who notices the almost complete lack of games that possess any form of 4-player offline mode that isn't also a game that can be acquired through DLC or isn't Halo?

Am I the only one who see's that this is the one thing that the Nintendo Wii does better than its more powerful, HD counterparts? Is the Wii better and providing gaming experiences for people who are physically present?

Seriously, it feels like no one is calling any company out on this problem.

Because God forbid you play games with multiple people in your house.

I mean really, whoever said the games had to be offline? As long as someone else is in the room with you're going to need more than one controller. I've played online campaigns with other people in the same room. Why shouldn't developers do what they can to cater to larger groups? If you aren't ever in a situation where you have people over and need that many controllers, here's what you do: don't buy three extra controllers.