Rumor: World of Warcraft for Consoles

All the MMO community went crazy after the release of World of Warcraft, about four years ago and almost 10 million players worldwide are a strong enough reason to believe that, even though it's an old game, it still has a long life to live. Words about a console port kept being heard even though the Blizzard developers said "No!" every time. Here is another similar case.

The guys from Gameplayer had a little chat with Chris Ansell, Director of Product Globalisation for Radical Entertainment regarding the online component of Prototype, the company's next release. During their friendly chat, he dropped a line that can have multiple interpretations (otherwise, you wouldn't be reading this piece of news). Basically, he said that a WoW port to consoles is going to happen. Here's what he said:

"Because next-gen consoles demand it [the multiplayer option in console games]. We have to be online. Obviously it’s gonna get more and more like what WoW is doing, with thousands of players on consoles, eventually. Which is pretty exciting. I can’t wait for that. It’ll be pretty fun."

Now this is indeed a great statement. World of Warcraft, consoles and thousands of players... that would indeed be earth shaking! There are pro-s and con-s regarding this rumor, however: Blizzard has repeatedly denied a console port, stating that it would require a "Herculean effort". Also, the game, even though it's still on the top, is quite old so people would rather spend vast amounts of money on something new (Diablo 3 in the works – another rumor – could be better suited). Still, the 10 million users playing WoW could be translated: extra buckets of profit if a console port is going to happen. So things are not that easy as people might they they are. However, Chris Ansell's statement is not something to ignore.

Of course, Vivendi said (again) that this is just a rumor and something that will never happen, stating that Chris "was only making a link to World of Warcraft as a great example of where online play is going, not a reference to World of Warcraft on console". So... who should we believe?

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