"No plans" for Age of Conan on Xbox 360

Three years on and Funcom has finally given up on Age of Conan for Xbox 360.

The barbaric MMO was announced for Microsoft's console in 2006. Two years and many game delays later, we heard that the 360 version would arrive a year after the PC game.

In the months and years after Age of Conan was released on PC and clearly needed lots more work, Funcom staunchly stood by the 360 version's existence on - four - separate - occasions.

Today, however, executive producer Craig Morrison throws in the towel.

"There's no plans for it at the moment," he told Eurogamer.

"We would like to go there [console] at some point in the future but there's no concrete plans for Conan at this time.

"As many other games have found, launching an MMO on a console was much more complicated than anyone had accounted for," he said. "There's still some evolution to be done."

Morrison also now heads up Funcom's Montreal office, which houses a dedicated team working on the company's Dreamworld engine.

"As a company we are continuing to work on console technology," Morrison explained, "now that we have a separate technology team who's developing the Dreamworld technology independently of the games. We have a tech team here in Montreal that are not tied specifically to any of the projects: they only work on improving our platform and improving our tools."

"But we still work particularly with Microsoft on looking at the technology platforms and working towards being able to have our Dreamworld technology at least working on the Microsoft consoles."

Getting an MMO on Xbox Live is notoriously hard, not because games don't work on Xbox 360 but because Live is wrapped in red tape. City of Heroes and Star Trek Online creator Cryptic Studios had the same problem with Champions Online on 360.

The fate of Age of Conan on Xbox 360 bodes badly for The Secret World on Xbox 360. Ragnar Tornquist, writer/director of Funcom's new MMO, told Eurogamer that a console version would only happen should the PC game be "a huge success".

Funcom today announced that Age of Conan will turn free-to-play this summer.

Funcom also announced this week that Age of Conan will welcome Conan the Barbarian movie-themed content this August.

Will attention from the film save Age of Conan? Eurogamer asked Craig Morrison the same question earlier this week.

We also grilled Conan the Barbarian producer Fredrik Malmberg about his movie, the new face of Conan and much more.