Even those of you who live under rocks and know only a 56k dial-up connection probably heard about Diablo III’s thunderous announcement last weekend. But this is a console-focused site, so we need a console-based excuse in order to write about Blizzard’s take on ole’ Big Red. Take it away, Sams.
“I don’t know yet,” Blizzard COO Paul Sams told The Guardian when asked about a console iteration of Diablo III. “A lot of it depends on whether we think the gameplay experience will be the same on console, especially regarding the controls. Also I’d like to keep our audience together.”
Sams then elaborated on how Blizzard would go about keeping their fans-in-virtual-arms together.
“One question mark I have is whether the console owners would allow PC players to play against console gamers. I think the answer gets a lot easier if the console owners say yes. But at the moment they do like to have closed systems.”
Ultimately, for Blizzard, it’s a matter of compromise — something that Blizzard doesn’t do. Confused? Sams cleared things up.
“When you are developing for multiple platforms you sometimes have to compromise,” he said. “We aren’t willing to compromise. We have relationships with all the console manufacturers. I know they would love to have us on their platforms, ideally on their own and not their competitor! But it’s all about the game experience.”
Looks like Microsoft and Sony have a long, arduous road ahead of them. Still though, for Diablo III, it might very well be worth it.
