![]() The eighth generation is still young and already it’s got a healthy amount of local multiplayer title available, with more getting announced/developed every day. The end result of all this is where we’re at now. As those games gained popularity, the industry took notice and started shifting as well. While big studios were working on pushing out the next big AAA title, smaller dev teams could focus on making the kinds of games so many of us remember from our youth. It’s no coincidence that the “rise of the indie devs” also saw a rise in local multiplayer/co-op games on the consoles. However, there still gamers that wanted to play games locally and, more importantly, there were developers that wanted that as well. So, yes, online gaming took over in a big way. Suddenly, gamers could play with friends that lived in a different part of the country, or in another country altogether! The final piece of all this is the social considerations of online gaming. That kind of a drain on a system’s resources meant that splitting the screen or having multiple local players on the screen at once was extremely difficult, though not impossible, depending on the game. We were asking for more and more realistic games, which meant having to squeeze every last bit of processing power from the consoles. ![]() ![]() Some of these titles still included local co-op/multiplayer, but the other consideration with all of this is the technology itself. As you said, the seventh generation of consoles saw an increase in the popularity of online gaming on them due to a variety of reasons (e.g., gamers having access to a more reliable Internet connection, console manufacturers incorporating wired/wireless technology in the consoles, publishers seeing a way to extend the life of their game through DLC), and that meant a lot of games that would have been local multiplayer only on a previous generation of console were now being developed for online play. Do you believe this downward trend of not including local co-op and split screen modes will continue over coming years or can you see it levelling off at some point? I believe we’ve reached that leveling off point. Since the start of the seventh generation, the popularity of online gaming on consoles has exploded and, unfortunately, it seems that a by-product of this success is that fewer games are including offline multiplayer functionality. Recently, I have had the fortunate opportunity of interviewing Jason Love from co-optimus, a site dedicated to co-op gaming, who has kindly offered to express his insight on the decline of local multiplayer over the last decade. A quality that online gaming will never be able to replicate so it is a great shame that fewer games are including any form of local multiplayer with each passing year. There is something inherently fun about offline multiplayer. Whether it is laughing at a friend who loses their temper and throws a controller or sharing a beer with three friends on a couch whilst playing Mario Kart. The problem was that it hasn’t – nor is it likely to ever – encapsulate the atmosphere that is provided by playing with people who are in the same room. ![]() The 360 and PS3 ushered in the exciting age of online gaming. Yes, the Dreamcast, Xbox, PS2 and some earlier consoles dabbled with online gaming, but they were neither as successful nor as prominent in their respective consoles. The Xbox 360/PS3 were the first home consoles to fully integrate online as a major selling point. No longer are games limited by the amount of controller ports on the front of a console. Whether it is a 1v1 game of FIFA or huge team death matches on Halo 3’s Valhalla, online gaming allows gamers to play the same, smaller matches they played locally, but also matches involving an inordinate number of players that would not have been possible offline. Developers are no longer as eager to support offline multiplayer as the rise of faster internet connections enabled gamers the ability to almost instantly connect and battle against players from around the world. Sadly, local multiplayer has been appearing in fewer titles with each passing year. The memories that I have from playing these games are intrinsically linked to my childhood. Offline gaming has always been there to pull out when I have had a couple of friends over and I would regularly play games such as Mario Kart, Diddy Kong Racing, Halo, and Smash Bros with my family. Over my lifetime, I have played local multiplayer on every console I have owned, from the SNES and Genesis all the way to the recent Wii U.
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