Blizzard says 'No' to Warcraft on consoles… for the moment

by David Touve { Sep 10th 2005 at 12:00PM }

WOW screenshot With 4 million global players of World of Warcraft, Blizzard is not in the mood to make any changes to a situation that looks to be working just fine. Apparently no console versions of WOW are on the horizon. According to ArsTechnica, Blizzard's vice president of business operations, Paul Sams, stated yesterday, on CNN, that while porting WOW might be a cool idea, "once we get to the point where we feel we've achieved best of class and it's sustainable, then we'll start contemplating those types of things." Sony has taken Everquest, while Square Enix brought Final Fantasy, to consoles, with the PC versions still dominating sales, so Blizzard has reason to hit pause for awhile. But we can only guess when "best of class" and "sustainable" occur and given the increasingly competitive landscape of the MMORPG world, never say never would seem to be a theme worth remembering.

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

(Not Impressed) Dmitri @ Dec 18th 2005 10:11PM

WoW would be a great addition to the Xbox360. Would be dumb to join PS3 since it will most likely be getting EQ2. I can't really see WoW on the rev either.

Twist @ Dec 18th 2005 10:11PM

WoW is the most popular MMORPG right now for PCs and Macs and it would easily become the most popular for consoles if Blizzard was to make it. Of course seeing how long it has taken them to get Starcraft Ghost out I guess they realize that WoW would probably be dead by the time they could released it for consoles.

epobirs @ Dec 18th 2005 10:11PM

The PS2 version of EverQuest cannot really be counted. It is a mere shadow of the PC game and it's hardly surprising it wasn't a strong draw for subscribers.

And if FFXI had originated anyplace other than Japan, would it have had a console version? The 'always a work in progress' nature of MMORPGs hasn't made them well suited to consoles and their audience. While the console realm is evolving, thing like downloadable content are still exotic novelties to the majority of console gamers. The machines are still mostly unconnected to the internet but a PC that isn't connected is increasingly rare.

A lot depends on the rate that HDTV displays are adopted. It's hard to do a MMORPG display with lots of text and detail on a NTSC screen. The higher resolution display will bring some equality between console and PC. There would remain the difference in doing community oriented activities while sitting up at a desk vs. sprawled on the couch. Voice chat gets around that some but has its limits.

By the time the new machines (Xbox 360, PS3, Rev) are reaching the end of their lifecycles, PCs will likely still dominate in community oriented gaming.

Radiant Silvergun @ Dec 18th 2005 10:11PM

Wasn't FFXI originally created first for PS2, then PC version came out?

FFXI is easy to play on the PS2. Just need to pick up a USB keyboard. Even playable with dialup, though load time is longer between zones vs cable/dsl.

All people are going to get with XBox 360 version of FFXI is sharper resolution (if attached to HDTV) and possibly better textures.