Obstacles to Cross-platform Gaming

Reader Katelyn Olmstead asked a question in the comments section for Playing Multiple Characters in MMOs across PC, Mobile, and I thought the response warranted its own post. Her question:

I like the idea of being able to play the same game, on multiple platforms, with the character(s) having unique traits based on the platform they come from. What problems do you potentially see in having all the platform creators (Sony, Nintendo, Microsoft, Nokia, etc.) work cooperatively to make this idea a reality? I can easily see how a nice profit can be made from it, but I also wonder where it could go horribly wrong. Your thoughts?

I'm not sure how narrowly you want me to look at the category of platform creators, so I'll include hardware, software, and the carriers. There are lots of potential problems. You could just step through the list of things that need to happen for mobile MMOs to come to the US and connect with existing PC MMOs and just say that each one of them might not happen. Here are some of the problems in no particular order.

Brand Maintenance

The content developers, like Blizzard/Vivendi, might decide that the handsets don't currently provide a sufficiently compelling experience to improve the brand. Blizzard certainly doesn't want players thinking of World of Warcraft as a low-quality title, and they may feel that the current graphical abilities, screen size, input mechanisms, and connectivity are insufficient and would drag down the Warcraft brand.

Ichiro Otobe: When making a Final Fantasy for the mobile, we waited until the technology was ready to do it right. Until the technology could match what was expected of the brand, no Final Fantasy fan would want to play Final Fantasy on a mobile.

Revenue Sharing

Content providers who may be used to charging subscription fees and keeping all of the profit may not adjust well to splitting revenue with carriers.

Disrupting Community

Unless mobile is designed into the game from the very beginning, content providers may feel that adding mobile capability changes the game too much and disrupts the current community. There's certainly precedent for adding character classes, professions, etc. in expansion packs, and I can also see some trepidation because mobile is less well-known.

New Technology

From a technical standpoint, the servers that the content providers have built are made for the kind of connectivity players have from a PC. They would probably have to be reworked to support mobile access. Certainly not impossible, but any new technology is always a risk.

DS and PSP

Nintendo and Sony have invested heavily in their portable gaming hardware, and at the moment that has nothing to do with the cellular network. WiFi could work for a subset of consumers, but I've had enough trouble connecting my DS to local hotspots that I doubt this would become widespread in the near future. Since these two companies are already so heavily invested, there are unlikely to want to step out of the bounds of their platforms. I sincerely doubt we will see Mario on a cell phone, unless that cell phone is made by Nintendo. I've never heard Nintendo talk about anything like that, and I think they would consider it too divergent from their main mission of games. I would like to see something like a Nintendo/Nokia partnership.

Carriers

I don't imagine it would be too hard to get the carriers on board, because what we're proposing is a long-term subscription model. That's exactly what they're looking for. If the PC version of the game has a reasonable number of subscribers, I think it wouldn't be a problem to get good deck placement from the carriers. There is still the problem of the whole purchase experience, though. It may be enough for many people to just see the name World of Warcraft on the deck, but others are going to want screenshots, reviews, a trial period, etc. I think all of that stuff is coming, but it's not here yet.

I'm just scratching the surface here. What other problems can people think of?