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Blizzard's Xbox 360 Surprise
So what's going on between Blizzard and the Xbox 360? There have been several "leaks" over the past few months, including the "accidental" listing of StarCraft: Ghost for next-generation consoles, an hour-long "Microsoft Next Gen Platform" presentation at BlizzCon this Friday, and several "Next-Gen" programming positions on the Blizzard jobs board.
Most likely Blizzard will simply be showing an Xbox 360 version of StarCraft: Ghost, but there is the possibility that they will be announcing an Xbox 360 version of World of Warcraft. However, I have confirmed that Greg Canessa (Group Manager of Xbox Live Arcade) will be at BlizzCon this weekend.
Why is the Manager of Xbox Live Arcade attending BlizzCon? Is he there just to hang out and play World of Warcraft with the masses or is he going to be announcing something? Very interesting. Well, BlizzCon starts on Friday so we'll all know soon enough!
UPDATE: This afternoon Blizzard changed their BlizzCon schedule and the mysterious Microsoft presentation was renamed to "MS Windows Vista Presentation". Hum, perhaps Greg is just going down to BlizzCon to play games and geek-out with the rest of us? We shall see...
are any of Steve's faithful going to attend? It would be nice to get a first-hand report.
Posted by SurfMurph at October 26, 2005 11:46 AMhello steve. iam new to your blog cast. very ineteresting news about wow and star craft. i love your show. keep it going.
new york aka the big apple. queens.
Wow(no pun intended) if there is a 360 version of WoW I will be sooo happy. My computer can hardly play solitare, let alone any actualy computer game. I might actually be able to get into this whole MMORPG thing that everyones been talking about... *crosses fingers*!
Posted by Areku at October 26, 2005 2:29 PM I agree with what the above poster said without realizing. If WoW goes to the XBox 360 it will bring in many, many more players who are primarily console gamers, those who can't afford a computer that can handle WoW, and the computer illiterate.
There's something like, what, 4 million subscribers to World of Warcraft right now? If it came to the XBox 360 I can see that jumping to 5 or more depending on the success of the console itself.
Considering the fact that Final Fantasy XI and several other MMORPGs (read: APB, Huxley) are making their way to the Xbox 360, I wouldn't be all that suprised to see WoW on the Xbox.
MMORPGs are continuing to grow at a rapid rate, and it would almost be stupid for Blizzard to not bring their RPG to the console. Console gamers (such as myself) have yet to really experience MMORPGs, and are a huge open market. Should Blizzard not bring their game to the 360, it would almost be giving the market away to Square as the popularity of MMOs continue to grow.
Posted by Tre (eXtinguish) at October 26, 2005 9:32 PMbut then again, another question begs: Which console to bring your MMO to? Obviously you'd want to have as many people play your game as possible,so you'd go with the most successful console. Small problem with that- PS3 doesn't come out for a long while still so it's kind of hard to guage. The other thing to do is to bring your game to every console, or at least every console with online capabilities. But sometimes the consoles want exclusivity of a title for their console, so it'd be a war for that. And if the console that has exclusive rights to your game tanks, well.....
Basically if you bring your MMO to a console it's a craps shoot whether or not it'll be successful.
Posted by Sami at October 27, 2005 4:42 AMWell, i wanna know how WoW vould work on Xbox 360 ??? It's like 20 spells u can cast and so on. Hard to figure it out i guess :)
Posted by Zipper at October 27, 2005 9:24 AMcomon NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO dont take this to xbox hate console!!!!
Get starcraft halo 2 and more console games to PC FFS Die console
X360 will work with any USB keyboard or mouse. You'd just get an HD big screen, 5.1 sound and a nice comfy couch as well. Count me in.
Posted by Sgt.B.Deep at October 28, 2005 5:04 PMI would hope it would come to ps3 as well as the ps3 is better and more powerful than the xbox 360.
even thou i have a great comp i would like it if WoW was bith ps3 and xbox 360.
Posted by Taydus at October 31, 2005 11:22 PMI think you need to consider one other thing about consoles..and which one(s) to bring your games out on..If Blizzard were going to release on consoles, and could release on any of the next gen systems, do you think Sony, which currently has EQ, EQ2, SWG, FFX1, and whatever else I am forgetting, is going to allow as big a competitor as Blizzard on their system? Not to mention the fact that Bill Gates could, if he so desired, get some kind of agreement with Blizzard, keeping WoW exclusive to XBox 360, at least for the short term. This would get those people who are waiting to get WoW on their consoles to buy the XBox 360 instead of the PS3.
I am no marketing genious, and I am sure there are things I am not considering, but just some thoughts which went through my brain while I read the above posts.