In a conversation about online gaming, it would almost be sacrilegious to not mention Blizzard and the online empire they have built. The community they’ve created with World of Warcraft is unparalleled- not to mention that they have been at the forefront of cooperative online gaming since its inception. The Starcraft servers are not only one of the longest running servers, but still one of the most popular (especially in Korea). So when Blizzard states that they are “up to speed” on current consoles, and that a future title on something other than a decked out PC is entirely possible, many heads turned.
The idea of Blizzard working on a console isn’t as farfetched as many think. In fact, as Michael Ryder, Blizzard Entertainment’s VP and Executive MD of Internal Operations, explained to MCV, home consoles actually where Blizzard got it’s start.
“In the early years Blizzard made console games. It’s not the heritage, it’s the design decisions and what we think is best for our players.”
The companies recent success has been most notable because of their involvement with PC gaming, but Ryder went on to explain that Blizzard’s projects are individually structured for the platform they are best suited for.
“In the more recent years it has been PC and online orientated. But we play all kinds of games at Blizzard. We try to learn wherever we can. We play console games and we are up-to-speed on the console platforms. And if we see an opportunity where the game design would work well on the console, then maybe we will go that way. We just haven’t announced anything yet.”
Can you imagine an online title as life-consuming as WoW that is featured for free on PSN? Oh wait, Activision must have adopted Blizzard’s strategy early, because they already released that.
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