Diablo III Confirmed for Console.. No Wait, Maybe Not

Blizzard made an announcement via Twitter that made it appear that they were working on Diablo III for console release.  Then said they weren’t working on console development, only exploring plans to possibly do so in the future.

Of course, the blogosphere, being the fickle thing it is, grabbed up the first bit of news and ran with it, forcing the response that rescinded that news.  As usual, only a fraction of the blogs predicting release dates for Xbox or PS3 D3 releases bothered reporting that it was just being explored and wasn’t a done deal.

Blizzard, for their part, played this one in their usual cryptically cool way.

That anyone would assume a console version was being made just form one tweet seems ludicrous, but the tweet talked about Josh Mosqueira and then named him as “lead designer for the Diablo console project.”  So the confusion is warranted on that front.

Blizzard, seeing the buzz, quickly tried to quash it with a statement made to industry magazine Game Informer, the company said that the quote was a little out of context and that the tweet should have included more information.  The company is only “actively exploring the possibility of developing a console version of Diablo III.”

That statement basically put a sink stone on the whole “it’s coming soon” meme running across gamer blogs.

So now the question becomes: if they’re actively exploring it, does that mean they’re going to do it sooner or later?

Given Blizzard’s past performance in releasing information on game development, it could be that they’re actually building the game for selected consoles now.  The person named in the tweet, Josh Mosqueira, is not the type of person you bring in to discuss the idea of putting something on a console.  He worked on Warhammer 40,000, Company of Heroes, and other big console games.

So it’s likely that they are actually developing a console version and just aren’t ready to announce it yet.

When would it release?  Good question.  Given the steep requirements D3 has for the PC in terms of hardware, it’s likely that a console version would either have to be dumbed down some (likely in terms of scale) or wait for a new generation of consoles, which are likely to release in the late fall for holiday sales.

In either case, the news is interesting and the reaction is worth noting.  So when Blizzard announces “out of the blue” that Diablo III is coming to (insert console name here), act like it’s a surprise.