Technically yes, but no thanks.

I was really looking forward to Ps3 mods. (mods sounds like such a naughty word these days)
Not even like nvde mods or new gear...

I simply wanted to be able to Port/Download ESM/ESP's over. That way, its all in-game content, and is limited by CK set on what can be changed.

That way there is some control and limit. Which is totally doable and has been done before.

But the Only issue that really comes to mind. (with above method)
Trophys...
Both Sony and MS or evil when it comes to people getting these things by cheats and such...
And even esp/esm files would make many trophies broken.

So inless Sony/MS Quality Insurance teams have control over what gets used. Its likely never gonna happen.

But then again, Several games with dungoen makers that broke trophies.. have made it. But alot of the games with map makers and such, were before the "forced" trophie thing.

WHICH reminds me!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

PC uses can use CK set to make ESP/ESM files.
360/PS3 users can downlaod them and use them. (since its all in-game, and no breaking of any of rules with nvdey mods etc) But have Trophies get Turned off when ESP/ESM are detected in use to prevent trophies from being bypassed.

There I solved the issue... Now gimmie my Ps3 Mods!!!

That makes no sense at all. What does modding have to do with pirating? Console games are already as easy to pirate as PC games (there is just the additional step of writing it to an appropriate disc), the only reason it's not a bigger statistic on consoles is because generally speaking, the userbase for consoles is more casual and much less technically inclined.

The hacking part is true, but what exactly did that do to the PC market that you make out to be so terrible? Users toying with programs has been around since the conception of PC's, why does it suddenly have a more negative influence except that it would cost $ony & Micro$oft money?

For crying out loud..

If it were Bethesda who were worried about that we wouldn't even have mods on the PC. I see no merit whats however in your statement. And a proper distribution platform can easily negate the threat of possible malicious code.

Besides that, and really, malicious code injection through a mod for a game is absurdly far fetched. The game simply doesn't have deep enough OS access and allowances to do any harm through .esp and .esm files, nor through textures and meshes.

I wasn't sure how different the basic games are because i don't really understand the differences of how pc / console games are made. I know the Creation Kit won't be on consoles though.


Yeah, I wasn't really talking about texture mods or really any small mods at all. This is purely hypothetical but when Steam Workshop has been out a while and people start using it for mods there could be a "Top 10" which will be the biggest and best mods like entire cities and storylines and Bethesday could check these for security issues and then make them available to be downloaded and installed on consoles? They could even charge for a downloader for all i care because i understand people would have to spend time checking these mods for security and game breaking code.

Who knows what Sony and Microshaft are up to? I think they treat consolers as money bags nothing more and I don`t think they care 2 hoots what they get as long as they can squeeze every penny out of them while controlling with an ironfist. It`s getting almost as bad on the PC now (with steam).

To them it`s all about money and shady deals, you can be sure.

I think just the fact that the current console generation has been lasting for 7 years now and the gap between PC gaming and consoles is bigger than ever, yet Sony has stated that they believe they can get a few more years out of the PS3 (!!) says enough. They'll never do anything that remotely involves doing customers a favour without seeing money for it. And that's sadly why free content like mods wont see the light of day on consoles in the foreseeable future.

With Bethesda's Fallout and Elder Scrolls games it's basically the same.

Think of it this way:
Technically speaking Bethesda's DLC is nothing more then official mods. They use the same file types and file structure as mods.

Well, games also dont have bugs. Or are not supposed to. (<--important detail here)

It is more like the cost of it than the money to be made. If I was Sony or Microsoft and I had used mods in this game the last thing I would want to do is deal with all the issues that mods are going to cause people. Putting a mod on a game is not a click of the button easy to do, nor is it easy getting the mod mix right when you have more than one. They would have to double their customer service staffing just to handle it. We would have to have a server farm just for the console mod sections of the forum.

Console users who ask for mods on the consoles have never tried to mod this game on the PC. If they had, they would know that mods on the console is not going to be a good thing. As you will not have any tools in which to fix all the problems you are going to have with the mods.

However, right now, the decision is Sony and Microsoft's to make, not Bethesda's.

True.
This is why I don`t see Mods happening at all for console players. It isn`t worth their time and effort for the returns.

Yes, and there is no reason to make it even easier. But ofc nowadays there is more to gain from hacking, like creditcard/personal info. If you get email adresses, some of them will have easy passwords etc etc. (children made accounts) Its just a huge security hole, and noone is interested in dealing with it, least Bethesda, its not even their problem(!), and has enough bugs to fix in Skyrim itself anyway.

Spot on. As an Xbox gamer, as much as I would love to see mods for Skyrim, I know it will be impossible with the large amount of customer service and technical support Microsoft would have too add when something eventually went wrong with a certain mod.

Though some people would argue that if Bethesda took the PC modes and converted them for the consoles, it would probabaly be alright. Like DLC's are practically mods anyway, just officials ones. But are Bethesda willing to create a seperate mod section for their games?

Obviously Steam Workshop isn't out yet but isn't the point of it to make modding as easy as "clicking a button" ?
The official "Skyrim -- what we're working on" post says:
"Using the Workshop, you’ll have free user content with the push of a button"

And why couldn't these downloadable mods be hosted in the same way as Xbox Live Arcade games and DLC?

I suspect that if some mod team was willing to go through the expense and beauracracy of either Sony's or Microsoft's QA process, they could probably publish a mod through PSN/XBL. It's just that modders generally don't have the resources or inclination to do that for something they are usually giving away for free. If they released the mod on PSN/XBL, they'd almost certainly need to charge something for it, so they can recoup the costs of getting published.

Actually, if MS or Sony were smart, they'd, in a few months, try and pick some of the best mods, and approach the mod teams about getting published on PSN/XBL. Maybe not all mods would be available on the consoles, but the console vendors could make some revenue, and the best modders out there could get a payday.

What security issue, an example please, these companies arent going to let you DL viruses if thats what you mean? Correct me if im wrong but isnt there software you can DL right now for Fallout and Oblivion that can check for mod incompatibilities? These are things im sure would be incorperated into such a system.

If you dl'd the update from around 1.5 years ago?
You can't run linux on it without reformating the HDD back to factory standards.
If you have a new one? S.O.L

As to the topic at hand?
The only way its going to console, is if gamesas, takes the highest rated 'mod' uploaded through steamworks, and personally re-works it to work it ont he console, to make sure it doesn't cause it to explode.

And while the PC version doesn't have to much access to the OS?
The 360/Ps3 one? Yea... It be very easy to make it explode if you knew what you were doing. (I use the term, Explode mostly for the imagery.

That said, there is only ONE case where PC mods were 'free' and Useable on the PS3, and that was UT3.
The problem?
NO one ever freaking used it!

Basically you used the PC editor, made a map. You had a certain amount of resources you could actually use, save the map, and 'port it to the Ps3 file version.
You could then put it on a USB, and toss it on the ps3.
Supposedly there mod editor 'checked' how much resources those maps actually used, debugged it, and prevented it from converting if there was some kind of conflict.

Gameplay tweaks? impossible.
New Assets? Impossible.
Bunch of stuff? Impossible.

And of course... no one used it!

There a both available as peripherals for the 360.

The issue is more about content control than security. Anyone that wants to hack into the hardware of an X360 or PS3 can do so now (they don't need access to mods in Skyrim to do this). Microsoft and Sony have no intention of allowing nvde gaming on thier platforms...that's the issue here (on the issue of being able to run mods).

Would the CK run on either of these platforms? I would think the CK editor would run fine on the X360 but not be able to actually load the SKYRIM.ESM for lack of memory. That means a big NO to creating mods.

The PS3 would likely require an entrie rewrite of the CK tools, so I seriously think that is out of the question.

Applications on the X360 have much LESS access to actual hardware than a normal PC, and a mod made thru the CK has absolutely NO access to any PC hardware at all. It's not beyond imagining that someone could intentionally write a mod to loop resource usage in an attempt to overheat the console, but I would think causing lasting damage to the hardware would be nearly impossible with that method. Not saying it wouldn't be a concern, but I doubt it's even in the top 5 of concerns that make putting mods on consoles something that is not going to happen.

The kind of hacking (or more accurately, account hijacking) you are talking about has absolutely nothing to do with the ability to mod. Companies use very highly secure (or rather that is the ideal) databases to store personal info such as email addresses and credit card info, and there is no way for a mod to interact with that. They're two completely different things. Not to mention that the account info would be stored at the respective companies themselves and in turn have nothing to do with Skyrim, the game that mods are built for..

who picks the mods? The one thing I have seen from all the mod lists posted, is that no one uses the same mod mix.


Yes, but I still don't see a button that says "Fix all the conflicts between these mods" or the "make a merged leveled list from all these mods" or "Make a Merged Bash for all these mods" or "sort these mods for proper load order" or "create the updated ini for these mods" or "fix the archive invalidation for all these mods" or the "load the mod in the editor so I can resolve this issue or that issue" button.

Again, you post what you did because you have not used and installed mods for this game or Oblivion or Fallout or New Vegas. It is not a button click away, not by a long shot. Once we PC users click the button gets up the mod, we still have to do all the above stuff on each and every mod we try out. All with third party tools that can not and will not run on a console platform. There is no Steam Button for that.

It is not that I don't want console users to have mods, it is that I don't want to deal with the thousands of threads that will pop up complaining about all the issues that will come and have no way to fix it. It would be one thing if there was a way to fix all the problems and issue, but since console users will not have access to the tools needed, it will just be frustration and heartache.

Yes, it's possible, but apparently MS/Sony don't feel it's worth the money it would take to develop equivalent tools for their consoles. I can't say I really blame them. Would it be awesome of them to do it? Sure. Do I really expect them to spend, probably, minimum of $100,000 (likely more than that; that's just based on the assumption of a small team of maybe 10 people - a couple devs, a few QA people, and some support and documentation people, working for 2 or 3 months on the project) on employee labor to get all this up and running so players can have free mods? Not really.

mods on the consoles is like halo 3 coming to pc...

What i mention in my post before is really the only option i see working.

As for esp/esm created. Beths or a site like Tes nexus can host them. Players can endorse them, leave comments on them. It works there, why not for ps3/360 mods.
They don't need to be hosted by Sony or MS. A simple place it on USB(or use pc connecter cords) is all you need.

It becomes the creater of esm/esp job to test the mod in 1st place. If it doesn't work on console.. they shouldnt upload it.
And with a site like Tes Nexus (or even sister site for console mods only) people should be able report bad mods. Or heck have mods sit on a waiting period which get tested by staff before thye get a OK.

Trophies and stuff can be turned off (even premently (certain cell phone cheat codes in GTA 4) stopped trophies.

As for virus and such.. if its down to just esm/esp files. And Beth or a proper site has moderators or good crowd. There really no issue.
If a ps3 user goes to a unknown site and downloads a bad mod... that his fault for not going somewhere trusted like Nexus.

I think there is a misunderstanding. Noone is gonna hack Sony's headquater when they can directly target the user via mods, like it is done in the PC world since ages. Do you have a PS3? Account names, emails are stored there(where else). Mod gains control, accesses data, sends data. Task complete. A simple trojan.
As for highly secure databases, you have got to be kidding me? Steam just got hacked recently. So was Bioware's account server not long ago. Whichever the cause, granting user control will result in havoc. Its very simple, really.