Thread: Everyone have a SAFE and entertaining evening tonight!

Originally Posted by TeenRacer6

The 360 could handle mods if it wanted to, but Microsoft cant. Its not making money would literally kill them, so they charge us for maps the PC gets for free.

That's why I hate the 360 sometimes. The lucky PC buggers get it free.

Originally Posted by 17271

Just think of the new things and replay value if people could modify Left 4 Dead on the Xbox 360.

What's the reason consoles don't have mods, like the PC does?

Because consoles are closed platforms owned by their parent companies, in this case Microsoft.

Just look at all the hoops you have to jump through to release a game on the Xbox 360: Xbox.com | Dev - Xbox Registered Developer Program

Mainly it boils down to money though. Why release something for free when you can make money off of it? That's how the higher ups at Microsoft see things. Remember they make more money off Xbox live then they do off selling hardware or software. LIVE is their money maker.

Originally Posted by Survivor117

If that were the case, though, wouldn't they charge the companies when they put out new map packs and such, which would in turn make them over-priced, such as a certain overrated game which I shall not name.

Check out Burnout Paradise. It has (Or so I have heard) a shitload of free stuff.

It is an EA game, and EA games seem to get a bit of a free pass when it comes to offering free content. Just look at the Madden series...which boggles my mind with releasing one game a year when they can push free roster updates.

Plus most games with a ton of free content usually have a way of providing updates/content in-game. Games that rely on the market place are more common though (L4D1 and L4D2 begin prime examples) and such content usually costs at least a few dollars if not more.

A good example is the L4D2 mutations which are updated/downloaded in-game. If these were put up on the market place there is no doubt in my mind that Microsoft would figure out a way to profit from them just like they've done with Crash Course and The Passing.

Lets ignore all that for a second and look at the popular custom maps and mods for the L4D series available on the PC. Without looking I'm willing to bet that 99% of those are made and supported by hobbyist programmers/designer. Which means 99% of those modifications and maps are produced by people that carry no weight in the gaming industry.

This means that for us to see this content on the Xbox, Valve (or someone under the direction of Valve) would have to acquire the rights (or permission) and port these projects to the 360 version, in addition they'd have to test them. Then they'd have to figure out a way to release them over live, either through the market place or in-game somehow (would require an update to the code base). Keep in mind that when developing a 360 game your not allowed to rely on having an HDD installed. This means any custom content would have to be able to run from a memory card, usb thumb drive, or directly from disc. It is just one of the many annoyances you have to put up with when making a game for the 360.

In short it is possible for the 360 version of both games to run mods and use custom maps. However all the red tape you have to put up with from Microsoft makes it hard to release things like this over live.

I'm not saying Valve couldn't have made more content available for both games up til this point in time. But it is understandable why they haven't released more than two maps (four if you include the versus versions of Dead Air/Death toll included in the survival pack).

I wish it was possible. Actualy you might be able to. In a recent law that was passed it is now legal to jailbreak phones (maybe other stuff, not sure). I now with the iphone you can legaly jailbreak it, but it voids your warranty. I dont know how far this law extends, maybe to the XBOX. I dont know how you would DL the stuff but its a start.

You now what, forget microsoft. SOme one please figure out how to do this. Do it and the 360 players will be at peace. I AM SERIOUS. DO IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And then if microsoft bans you from xbox live you might be able to use that law I talked about to sue em and more importantly get LIVE back.

Thanks for your responses.

I figured the main reason was so companies control the content gamers are exposed to, but if you bought an M rated game with mod tools in the first place, you should expect adult content in mods.

I'd love to see mods on consoles, or maybe being able to interconnect the Xbox 360 with the Left 4 Dead PC servers.

It sucks that the Xbox 360 is restricted to its own network. Cross-platform gaming would rule.

Lik I said that law allows you to jailbreak anything (as far as I know) so in theory you could in a way create a xbox live of sorts but make it where its free and PC players can play with xbox players.