Gamesindustry.com reported last week that Blizzard’s Rob Pardo had confirmed that Blizzard had been in talks with Microsoft about the proposed “Xbox 720”.
Apparently Pardo made the comment when speaking at a luminaries lunch at last week’s Game Developers Conference in San Francisco. According to Gamesindustry “Pardo would only state that Blizzard is actively in discussions with Microsoft, seemingly confirming the development process of new console hardware is under way.”
Pardo also was quoted as saying that the only reason Blizzard had not developed for consoles up until now, is that the hardware had not been specifically designed around the genres which Blizzard concentrate on, i.e. RTS, RPGs and MMOs.
His exact words according to Gamesindustry were: “There are so many games like we make at Blizzard that we don’t take to consoles because they don’t support the input device and you end up with crappy ports. That’s why RTS games never do well on consoles.”
“If I was them, I’d be sitting around trying to figure out what’s a cool input device that supports all types of new kinds of games.”
The idea of Microsoft approaching Blizzard in talks over the IT giant’s next console is not difficult to believe. After all, Blizzard is arguably the most successful games developer in the world, and the company currently develops exclusively for PC. If Microsoft could get the developer involved with their next console then Xbox fan boys the world over would have something to smile about.
The headline on Gamesindustry read: “Blizzard in talks with Microsoft for next Xbox”, which was more than enough to stir up a media frenzy. Blizzard has since responded to the rumours by denying any involvement in Microsoft’s next console whatsoever.
Blizzard representatives told Gamespot that the conversations at the luminaries lunch were taken out of context and blown way out of proportion.
“In the Lunch with Luminaries discussion, Rob said that Microsoft occasionally bounces ideas off of us, with no specific reference to any possible future consoles.
“This should come as no surprise, as our games run on Microsoft’s PC operating system. We aren’t in discussions with Microsoft regarding any future consoles.”
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