Diablo III for Consoles Is Still Investigated by Blizzard

Diablo III, even if it still hasn't received a concrete release date from Blizzard, might still get a console version, as the company is investigating such a possibility.

Diablo III is Blizzard's next big release, and, seeing as how it's a simpler role-playing game than the previous StarCraft II real time strategy title, plenty of voices say that a console version of the game, for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, may appear alongside the PC one.

Blizzard is still playing coy, however, with its Chief Executive Officer, Mike Morhaime, saying during the DICE summit yesterday, that one "could make an argument that a game like Diablo might play very well on a console."

"It's something that we're actually doing an investigation into to see if that could make sense," he added, while pointing out that Blizzard prefered the PC platform due to its flexibility, according to Joystiq.

Still, a number of issues would keep the company away from consoles in terms of Diablo III, with the most important being the closed nature that complicates things when releasing updates or expansions.

Such an issue was also cited by another traditional PC developer, Valve, on several occasions.

Among the Blizzard portfolio, however, Diablo would make the most sense if it were to appear on consoles, due to its simpler control interface than other strategy titles like StarCraft or Warcraft.

As of right now, however, you can be sure that Diablo III is going to be released on the PC at one point in time. Still, in terms of consoles, things are still pretty much in the air.

Blizzard said a few months ago that it was "exploring a Diablo-related concept for consoles," but that it would not "delay or affect the release of the PC game."

Diablo III is set to receive a beta stage later this year, while a concrete release date is still unknown.