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Blizzard Seeking Console Devs For 'Diablo-Related Concept'
Eurogamer reports that a number of Blizzard job listings went up today for top-level console developers. The listings were posted under the Diablo 3 heading, leading to speculation about a console port of the upcoming game. A Blizzard representative soon responded, saying, "... we’re currently exploring a Diablo-related concept for consoles. As we’ve said in the past, with proper care the gameplay could suit the console platform, and we’re interested in seeing what talent out there might be interested in contributing to such a project. To further reiterate what’s posted on the home page: this is not an announcement of a console title. We are first and foremost developing Diablo III for Windows and Mac PCs, and we have no intention of allowing a console interpretation to delay or otherwise affect the release of the game." Having played Diablo 3 at Blizzcon, I can say that the game would very easily make the transition to consoles. An Xbox 360 or PS3 controller would almost perfectly fit all necessary gameplay functions. That said, they could just as easily be porting one of the older games, building a new mini-game to get their feet wet, or getting started on Diablo 4. Time will tell.
Think of the physical conditioning of using full body action to play a Diablo style combat game. I think that would be the motivation I'd need to lose the thirty pounds I've been meaning to drop.
(I thought, cool, a MUD version! And about time...)
Kinect Horadric Scroll Recipe: Hands to the left, hands to the right, hands up, buy an xbox live account, do the cha cha... Congratulations, You've Socketed your eyeballs.
The Battle.net tie-ins for single player are really just a ploy to cut down on pirating. On consoles they'd be far more worried about used game sales instead. I can't imagine Blizz releasing a game without Battle.net support for multiplayer and achievements though. It will be interesting to see if Microsoft will allow that. B.net is as fully featured as Live is these days so this could be a major sticking point that pushes Blizzard content towards the PS3 similar to what happened with Steam.
The Baldur's Gate franchise was turned into a hack & slash when ported to console, but Diablo games are already hack & slash games. What will Blizzard do? Develop a meta hack & slash?
Fill a market niche. I loved those games. They weren't anything like the PC Baldur's Gate series, but they were full-screen (no split-screen) couch co-op fun for me and my roommates in college. There's nothing like that anymore; all the current generation games are splitscreen co-op or network co-op only.
If I could play Diablo with fullscreen co-op, I'd buy it on launch day.