Blizzard considering coming back to consoles

If anyone knows how to make a hit game that sticks around for years, it’s Blizzard. The company just released the insanely popular StarCraft II this week which has been the number one selling game in multiple regions on Amazon’s website. Blizzard has a way of tapping into a gamers mind and pulling out their most addictive qualities. They then use those qualities to build a killer PC and Mac game. But Blizzard hasn’t really tried to duplicate its success on consoles. It’s possible the company may take a chance on console development in the future.

Michael Ryder, Blizzard Entertainment’s VP and executive MD of internal operations, told MCV Blizzard started off as a company that made console games. It’s tremendous success in the PC market with games such as World of Warcraft and StarCraft was partly due to the companies idea of what would be best for its audience.

Blizzard’s audience has been speaking with its wallet. Blizzard easily makes millions of dollars every month on World of Warcraft subscriptions alone. This is not including the profit it makes from Warcraft expansions and its other games on the market. Though you can look at Blizzard as a PC company, the staff is well-versed in consoles.

“We play console games and we are up-to-speed on the console platforms,” Ryder said. “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.”

This is where things get tricky. MMO’s on consoles have never been as popular as their PC counterparts. Even a RTS game such as StarCraft requires the speed and finesse that is difficult to translate on a console controller. Even though the PS3 can support a mouse and keyboard, most consumers don’t have their PS3 in a place where using PC accessories is an easy task. There’s also the financial roadblock posed by Xbox Live. Getting gamers to pay at least $10 a month to play one game online in addition to Xbox Live fees is a lot to ask.

We’ll trust Blizzard will make an experience that gets us to forget about the extra cost. It has done that plenty of times before.

Via [MCV] Read [Go Nintendo]