The Demise of Split-screen Multiplayer

by Alex R. Cronk-Young , BITMOB STAFF

Thursday, October 22, 2009

Editor's note: I feel Alex's pain. My friend and I are always on the lookout for local multiplayer games on 360 and PS3, but we usually end up falling back on the Wii or passing the controller. Do you find yourself in similar situations? Or are you happy playing online? -Brett

Hanging out at a friend's house the other week, we decided to fire up his PlayStation 3 and check out Fat Princess. He played some, I played some. We soon realized that one of us watching the other one play online got boring fast. So I asked if he had a second controller to play a game together. He pulled out another Sixaxis and started digging through the Fat Princess menus.

"Oh, I guess this doesn't have any local multiplayer," he said.

"Ugh, crap. Well, do you have a game that does?" I responded.

"Hmmm, Motorstorm does, I think."

This excited me. I had been wanting to try out Motorstorm since playing the demo at Best Buy. Sadly, we quickly discovered that it also didn't have any local multiplayer.

Out of options, we resigned ourselves to passing the controller with Battlefield 1943 and Fat Princess.

Now, I won't defend everything about the Wii, but it seems to me Nintendo has gotten one thing right that Microsoft and Sony have forgotten: local multiplayer.

I love having the Wii for when people come over. Whether it's the family coming over for the holidays, a friend stopping by, or my sister-in-law's transatlantic boyfriend staying in town, the Wii gets a lot of play. We waggle away on the couch, make fools of ourselves, and generally have a great time together.

With the popularity of online play on the PS3 and 360, are we slowly losing this element of social gaming interaction? In 10 years, will it be completely impossible to sit down with a group of friends for some game time?

Every time we have a family gathering with my wife's side of the family, I inevitably end up back at her cousin's house. There, her uncle, a couple of her cousins, their friends, and I play Halo, Call of Duty, or some other shooter for hours.

I'm terrible at first-person shooters, but it's still a lot of fun to get together with everyone and play because we're all generally at the same skill level. If I had to play online with strangers, I'm sure I would get completely destroyed -- and that's why I don't see myself buying any shooters when I get a PS3 or 360. That heady rush of laughing and cursing together on the same couch would be gone.

Obviously online has its benefits -- I don't think we should get rid of it. But I do wish that the industry would stop forgetting about local multiplayer.

When my kids are old enough to play games with me, I want to be able to sit down and have trash talking matches with them. Is it going to come to the point that we will have to have two systems to play online while we're sitting right next to each other?

I hope not.

Check out Cerebral Pop for my other writings on music, movies, and more, as well as articles from other contributors.

Tags: Wii, Call of Duty, Online Gaming, Fat Princess, Halo: Combat Evolved, local multiplayer, split-screen, Motorstorm

Comments (21)

Toby Davis

October 20, 2009

You can do split screen co-op on Borderlands so you know if you wanted play it. :)

A.J. Minotti

October 20, 2009

I would argue that split screen is having a bit of a comeback. Besides the aforementioned Borderlands, Motorstorm 2 does have split screen. We also have Halo and CoD with split screen. Halo has always done split screen co-op even. The Lego games also come to mind, plus a slew of Wii titles. It's not as bad as you think. Though I'll agree it certainly could be better. It's at least an improvement over the last few years.

Mark T. Whitney

October 20, 2009

I think the reason why Split-Screen isn't as prevalent in games as it used to be is greed. It's ironic how we all used to love split-screens on those massive 15-20" televisions we used to have but now that our televisions have grown larger we are less inclined to share.

Travis McReynolds

October 20, 2009

I also think it's a format issue. Every game would have to have different screen splitting settings for both SD and HDTVs. Easier to just make us all pay the XBL gods.

Tommy Ingallinera

October 21, 2009

This is a big issue for me. As far as PS3 goes, the best local splitscreen(or local multiplayer) games I've been able to find are Resistance 1, Motorstorm 2, Borderlands, and MUA 1 or 2. Any fighting game will fill the bill as well. There aren't very many.

Brian Shirk

October 21, 2009

Even though I love online games, I think it's a shame that it's disappearing. One of the things that really attracted me to Halo's multiplayer was the fact that you can play in split-screen online. Whenever I was playing with friends or siblings, we could easily hop on Xbox Live and join in on the fun. It blows my mind that Infinity Ward didn't include that same feature with Call of Duty 4, because that would have gave it so much more replay value. Instead, it only has boring offline split-screen.

Brett Bates

October 21, 2009

Alex, I had that exact same Fat Princess conversation with my friend! It's really a shame...we'd have played a lot more of that if it had split-screen. There are numerous reasons why online has eclipsed multiplayer, but I'm glad Nintendo has is still keeping the torch alive.

Tony Capri

October 22, 2009

Yeah, I wish I understood the challenges involved in adding local multiplayer in a game, because it seems like it would be a no-brainer for any game that offers multiplayer. That being said, I still have a lot of fun playing online.

Frank Sabatini

October 22, 2009

The recent lack of split screen upsets me too. I can't remember how many hours I logged into Timesplitters 2 on split screen. Now when ever I have people over the choices are basically Mario Kart, Super Smash Brothers, and Halo. Those just aren't enough choices.

Chris Davidson

October 22, 2009

I bought fat princess thinking it had split screen multiplayer, and it was a stupid decision on my part. I wrongfully assumed that it must have it and was immediately disappointed (I haven't played it since.) It's absolutely ridiculous that developers are making so many games online multiplayer only, I'll never touch the multiplayer for a game that does that. I really like how games like Warhawk handle it, where you can play split screen online but you can only play ranked matches by yourself. This is a very sensitive subject for me and probably has me infuriated more than anything else in the gaming industry right now. The only reason I haven't wrote about it is because every time I tried it ended in a pointless and unstructured rant. Great article and glad some people agree!

Andrew Peter Lasher

October 22, 2009

The reason for games not having split screen definitely is greed. Why allow two people to play the same game together when you can force them both to buy the console and a copy of the game.

Tom Heistuman

October 22, 2009

I refuse to believe that the biggest factor in losing local co-op is corporate greed. Developers work their asses off to put out a well-rounded product so their customers can have fun. Personally, I chalk it up to time, resources and practicality. Would you REALLY want to try playing CoD 4's Downpour map online with 3 other people squishing the screen? It'd be terrible! A lot of time and money goes into online multiplayer and if they then had to try and make everything work correctly on 4 screens it would end in tears. I had years of fun playing Mario Kart 64 and Double Dash at my friend's house but those were games that called for local co-op. Consider that Nintendo has all but abandoned an online component in their consoles for this long (and are still #1) and you can see why they're the ones continuing the tradition.

AJ Hurst

October 22, 2009

Smash Bros and Rock Band are always, ALWAYS the games of choice when I hang with my friends. Key difference between those games and other local multiplayer games is not having to deal with split-screening. We just don't have the patience anymore to deal with squinting our eyes to play Halo with a limited field of view.

Christopher Quach

October 22, 2009

@ Alex, I totally agree, there's something amiss with online and that is the company of good friends sharing an experience together. If you have a ps3, you could download warhawk which has split screen option and can play online with split screen. I'd like to see more fps games provide the option for split screen online matches. On a different note, Little Big planet provides good on screen time with friends. My partner and I often play online with a friend who lives several hours away. It's nice to be able to play and chat as a group.

Raine Riley

October 22, 2009

When I think of the most fun I've had gaming I most often think of gaming in the room with my friends. Sure, I've had a good time playing WoW, had some fun online shooter action, but nothing can beat playing a game with a group of friends while downing some beers. Thank lord for sports titles and Rock Band, or else we'd really be screwed. I am thinking of experimenting with ways to bring living room fun to online games, however. Having one person playing while another is the dedicated shit talker (while drunk, of course) is something I'm going to have to try soon.

Jordan Sommers

October 22, 2009

Don't forget the rapidly disappearing system link. Granted split-screen is usually way more convenient, but to not be able to play the same (multiplayer) game in the same building on two different consoles/TVs/copies without piping through the internet has always irked me. Having said that the cases where split-screen is conspicuously absent vastly outnumber the instances of system link. As to why it's slowly vanishing, I'd wager that being able to effectively manage 2-4 instances of a game becomes increasingly difficult as games get larger in scope and graphics.

Victor Ford

October 22, 2009

I agree. Split-screen with online is the way I wish more developers would go. Restrict it to just 'casual' games, and campaign modes, if developers are so concerned about abuses and parity in 'ranked' modes. One of the best aspects of Halo, has been the support for these modes across the board. I don't understand why more games don't do it. Gamers understand it's sometimes a compromise, but it's still a lot of fun. And isn't that the point?

remingtonsteal

October 22, 2009

Aside from liking sports, I think the reason I play so many sports games now is that those are the games my brother and I used to rent since we could play at the same time. It's pretty safe to assume that Madden will always have local multiplayer....

Omar Rahmani

October 22, 2009

I agree. I bought Crackdown the other day, b/c it was supposed to have great Co-op.And, I wanted something to play with my g/f. Instead of having her watch. Even the back of box said it had offline co-op. So to my disappointment, the offline co-op was nothing more then System Link =\ I paid $10 for a used copy, so I'm not that unhappy. Eventually, I'll get around to playing it, but I'm so sick of companies say they have offline co-op but fail to say over system link on the back of the box.

Alex R. Cronk-Young

October 23, 2009

Wow. A lot of people agree with me. And I thought I was just the crazy guy who hadn't truly entered the "next gen", and was clinging to the ways of the past. If everyone wants split screen, then developers need to change their thought process. They seem to be under the impression that gamers are all about online only.

Carlos Macias

October 25, 2009

Split-screen online play is the reason that Halo 3 is my game of choice when friends come over. But, like some have mentioned already, it does seem to be coming back with some games. Earlier this year, Sacred 2 did it and, recently, Borderlands has included it. Don't forget Left 4 Dead 2!

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