14 DAY TRIAL // Speaking at the Game Developers Conference, Rob Pardo from Blizzard told the audience that his company had been talking to Microsoft about the potential successor to the Xbox 360 in order to ascertain whether the next generation console would be a medium for which Blizzard would develop games.
It's hard to know whether the reveal from Pardo means that the Xbox 720 (or whatever the follow-up is named) is actually in development. It could be that Microsoft is creating it and seeking active contributions from those game developers that could create games for it but it could also be that Blizzard and the maker of the Xbox 360 are only talking about concepts related to it.
The Blizzard man also talked about the fact that Sony and Microsoft need to take a look at Nintendo and think about how they could change the way videogames are controlled. He said that "If they don’t come up with a way to come up with new forms of gameplay and new mechanics, than [sic] there is no point in giving us new hardware, because then it’s just about cloud computing.”
Other game developers agreed that all console creators should be talking more to videogame creators about how the next generation of consoles (which may or may not exist) will work. Blizzard has long stated that it would not develop videogames for consoles unless it could get a control scheme that made its games play as well as on the PC.
Warren Spector, boss of Junction Point Studios, which works with Sony, also expressed concern about the future saying that “I get the impression they're focusing on owning the living room. One device that lets you watch movies, television and play games and music and all that stuff. They're so focused on that that I'm not even sure they're thinking about the games that are going to come out. Which is kind of crazy.”