Blizzard - Paul Sams Interview

Game Industry has an interview with Paul Sams (Blizzard's COO) that discusses developing three titles at the same time, the Activision merger and Consoles.

Q: What is it that's keeping you on the PC and off consoles?
Paul Sams:
It's really an issue of the games that we're making. I think a lot of companies and a lot of management teams sit down and look at the Wii as being popular, or that the Xbox 360 is doing well, and try to figure out what their product plans will be for that platform.
We don't care. Our attitude is, what game will we make? This is the game we want to make, so what is the appropriate platform for that game? And if the answer is PC only, then we've proven that we're comfortable with that.
In the event that we think it should be a different platform, we'll explore that, and if the right answer is to do that for the game that we're making, we will. We keep in constant contact with all the console manufacturers, we have a great relationship with them. When they do their roadshows and go talk to the publishers that they work with, they always come and see us - and when we're in their areas we always go see them.
So we have the relationships, and believe me, they want to see us on their platforms, but we haven't had the right game for it yet. But I don't think that at any level suggests that we won't be there if the right game comes along.

More information.

I think the working world breathes a sigh of relief that WoW isn't free to play!

Nothing would be easier than a D2 or D3 port t consoles, regarding controls…

Originally Posted by Rendelius
Nothing would be easier than a D2 or D3 port t consoles, regarding controls…

Theoretically that is true, but it hasn't really been tried yet (AFAIK). Sacred 2 should prove an interesting test case and if it turns out all right, I'm pretty sure the only real obstacle left is a console version of Battle.Net.

They are rolling in cash so they dont feel the need to stretch to new platforms.

Originally Posted by Rendelius
Nothing would be easier than a D2 or D3 port t consoles, regarding controls…

I wonder if this merger means more possibilities for Blizzard to make console spin-offs like Starcraft: Ghost a more realistic possibility.

Originally Posted by Rendelius
Nothing would be easier than a D2 or D3 port t consoles, regarding controls…

Well, perhaps. But I'm not sure Microsoft would allow to use battle.net for Xbox 360 games… And btw PC is a free platform and consoles are owned by their manufacturers. There always is a danger of some unexpected problems with those owners…

Originally Posted by Rendelius
Nothing would be easier than a D2 or D3 port t consoles, regarding controls…

Wha…? Have you played Diablo II? I've played it as well as console games of the same sort (such as Champions of Norrath), and I disagree. While D2 is maligned as simplistic, I hope folks can at least acknowledge that at the harder difficulty levels, the ability to attack the correct one of the 15+ fast moving enemies on the screen can mean the difference between life and death. For a company that takes gaming as seriously as Blizzard, I think it's actually possible that the inferiority of console controls could keep them from releasing a sub-par port.

Rolling in dough? Sure they are. But Mr. Burns will tell you that they'd trade all that money for a little more. I think hiring a bunch of nameless programmers to port over the game to consoles would be easy as pie, and would pay off with titanic sales. Blizzard has the resources to afford this, and a return on such an investment is surer than sure. Call me naive, but I think Blizz honestly appreciates the importance of the (mistakenly much maligned) point and click nature of Diablo's gameplay, and they know that a gamepad just couldn't cut it. Kudos to them for not cashing in with an inferior product.

Not that there couldn't be such a game for consoles. But the skills would need to be different and/or differently calibrated to make up fo the change in controls. This is what I'm willing to believe Blizz understands.

I know I'm probably in the severe minority, but I actually prefered the console ports of Diablo 1 soley because I got to use a gamepad instead of point and click.