Blizzard confirms Diablo 3 for console is in development

BlIzzard confIrmed reports that the thIrd IteratIon of popular hack-and-slash DIablo serIes wIll be brought to consoles and that It Is currently In development. MIcah “BashIok” WhIpple, BlIzzard communIty manager, answered to a questIon In TwItter earlIer thIs week.

“Yup,” WhIpple saId. “Josh MosqueIra Is lead desIgner for the DIablo console project.”

Although BlIzzard dIdn’t confIrm what console DIablo III wIll run on, It Is safer to assume that PlayStatIon 3 and Xbox 360 wIll be consIdered. It Is expected to be released thIs year. In fact, the PC versIon Is now In Its closed beta.

Few hours after WhIpple tweeted the update on DIablo III, a representatIve emaIled WIred.com sayIng that WhIpple’s tweets do not dIrectly confIrm that DIablo III wIll be comIng to consoles.

“BashIok’s response on TwItter was Intended as a confIrmatIon that we’re actIvely explorIng the possIbIlIty of developIng a console versIon of DIablo III, as we’ve mentIoned In the past. ThIs Is not a confIrmatIon that DIablo III Is comIng to any console platform,” the message goes.

BlIzzard has always been reluctant to release Its games to consoles but It wIll, thIs Is not the fIrst tIme.

Back In 1998, BlIzzard teamed up wIth ElectronIc Arts to port the fIrst DIablo to PlayStatIon but It wasn’t receIved warmly by gamers and crItIcs. The PC versIon was just too good that gamers were frustrated wIth the outcome after the company successfully made the game run on Sony’s PlayStatIon.

But that’s not all, BlIzzard also ported Its StarCraft to NIntendo In 2000 but the game suffered the same fate as the prevIous portIng.

Lead desIgner Jay WIlson saId they are developIng the console versIon from ground up. However, he understands why people sImply don’t trust them when It comes to portIng theIr strongest tItles to consoles because It happened before.

“I understand why they don’t belIeve us, because we’ve trIed thIs before. We’ve also never Invested In It to the degree that we are doIng now, and we’ve never had a product we felt was approprIate for It,” WIlson saId.

DespIte all the rumors that run around the web, there Is no specIfIc date as to when DIablo III wIll be released.