E3 2011: Xbox Live ‘too closed’ for Dust 514

Xbox Live is too closed for the developer of PS3 exclusive Dust 514.

Speaking to Eurogamer during an E3 presentation, CCP CTO Halldor Fannar said: Let’s just say that with Sony at least they have policies that allow us to build the game the way we want.”

That is one of the reasons why we’ve gone with PSN.”

When asked if the title could potentially head to Xbox 360, he replied with a smirk and a no comment.”

Dust 514 was announced as a PS3 exclusive at Sony’s E3 press conference earlier this week. Icelandic developer CCP explained that the title will connect directly to its PC MMO Eve Online, which has been live since 2003, to create one persistent universe. Battles in the console game will have direct effects on the PC MMO.

Sony has been experimenting will MMOs of their own, such as DC Universe Online and Free Realms. Fannar explained that the platform holder’s openness is what drew CCP to them.

Sony allows us to use our systems,” he said.

Microsoft has Xbox Live. They’re very strict on that. There’s a lot of issues we run into. It may be a basic thing people don’t realise, but with Dust and Eve on Sony’s network, we can allow them to chat together. Voice chat, text chat, that’s all one world.

One of the reasons for the partnership with Sony is because they’re opening up new ways to do these things.

We’re going to be managing most of it. We’re using PlayStation just for credentials, stuff like that. Then it’s all our stuff.

With our agreement with Sony they seem to be fine with our three month expansion cycle. They’ve been looking at the MMO space for a while, trying to understand why something like that hasn’t still happened on the console. They’re coming to terms with it. There are certain things they have to relax just to allow these things to function.”

When asked if the game could appear on PC, Fannar said: We’re exclusive on the PS3 right now and we’re focusing on making a really good game there.

But I can’t speak to what’s going to happen in the future, so…”

A closed beta is planned for the end of this year, ahead of the Dust’s full release in 2012.