Round hole Square Peg

[mavric240]

Blizzard: 'We don't have anything against consoles!'

By Wesley Yin-Poole - 27/08/2008 - 2:20pm GMT
No console WoW a 'square peg round hole thing'.


Blizzard has told VideoGamer.com that mega MMO World of Warcraft won't come to the Xbox 360 or PS3 not because it has something against consoles, but because of a "square peg round hole thing".
Speculation that Blizzard would eventually port World of Warcraft to console has maintained a healthy level ever since the original game was released in February 2005, despite the developer constantly maintaining its desire to keep the game PC exclusive.
Blizzard's unwavering commitment to the PC has disappointed many console gamers who would love to see its popular games, including Warcraft, Diablo and Starcraft, on either the Xbox 360, PS3 or Nintendo Wii.
Blizzard executive vice president of product development and co-founder Frank Pearce told us in an interview published last week that the chances of upcoming RTS StarCraft 2 coming to console are "very close to zero".
Speaking to VideoGamer.com at Leipzig Games Convention last week Blizzard's J Allen Brack, production director of Wrath of the Lich King, suggested a similar chance of World of Warcraft coming to console, citing the control scheme as the primary factor.
Brack said: "World of Warcraft is designed as a PC game. It's designed to have a keyboard and a mouse. So the controls and the control scheme that you have are very PC centric. If you think about mapping those controls and all those different type of buttons that you have to a console without a keyboard for chatting, it's a very challenging proposition."
In the same interview lead game designer Tom Chilton insisted that the developer had nothing against games consoles.
"It's really not that we have anything against consoles," Chilton said. "I mean we love console games also. And I'm sure there will be a successful MMO sometime on a console. So it has nothing to do with that. It's just more like a square peg round hole thing for our game. It just wasn't designed with that in mind."
Be sure to check our Wrath of the Lich King game page for the latest on one of the most anticipated game expansions in history or head straight to the full interview.

[Smyth]

Y'know that doesn't really bother me too much. I like WoW being PC based.

[Vazhkatsi]

Blizzard should really stick with pc games, they're really good at making them,
I mean have any of you played Starcraft 64? icky.
i mean really, a game with a thousand spells and over a hundred for each class, with usually at elast 50 mapped out onscreen at a time, is had to put onto a console with a controller with 14 buttons. i think, for the most part MMORPGs and RTS are on the computer for a reason.

[Khaf]

Modern consoles can use keyboards and mice. I would love to play WoW with the power of the PS3 since my laptop where I play is... outdated.

[mavric240]

kHAF I have to agree I don't think I would mind so much but I also see the others point too. As long as it would not lose any features I would love to see it come on console. Maybe mine would actually get used for something other then BLu-Ray!

[Innor]

Well I for one find it really nice that there it at least one game producer who isn't running away from the pc's and going to the consoles. There are way to many games that make this switch at the moment, take for example the latest GTA... I mean, no PC version?!? When I buy a pc i want to be able to play games, and besides from Blizzard, there dosn't really seem to be other companies who think this is a good idea... luckily Blizzard make so good games that it is enoough to keep the pc for a couple of years more