No Rush: Blizzard open to consoles but doesn’t mind not being first

Console ports for MMOs seems to be quite the trend lately. So what about Blizzard‘s World of Warcraft? Aren’t they worried that if someone beats them to the punch, they’ll loose out. Not really, according to Mike Morhaime. Guess this means a World of Warcraft console port is still a looooooong ways off.

Console ports for MMOs seems to be quite the trend lately. Rumors have been flying hard and fast about potential ports for several major MMOs.

Warhammer Online, Lord of the Rings Online and the upcomming Star Wars: The Old Republic are have all officially under the “considering it” phase already.

So what about Blizzard‘s World of Warcraft? Aren’t they worried that if someone beats them to the punch, they’ll loose out. Online connectivity is standard in the current generation of consoles and not everyone owns a PC gaming rig. There’s probably a vast market of unconverted WoW players just ripe for the plucking.

“We donÂ’t really look at it like, ‘If youÂ’re not first, youÂ’re behind,” said Blizzard CEO Mike Morhaime.

I can believe it. World of Warcraft itself is really just an amalgamation of everything tried and proven from various other MMOs and then polished to a mirror finish.

While Blizzard’s focus is really just the PC and the Mac right now, Morhaime mentioned that they’re certainly open to developing a game that would work well on the consoles. He added:

WeÂ’ve had console development experience in the past. Activision has a ton of experience in bringing console products to market. And we know all the Microsoft guys anyway from the PC side. So I think weÂ’re in a fine position to be able to develop console games whenever we choose to.

So as usual, they’ll be adopting the wait-and-see-then-do-it-better approach. Well, it’s given them the undisputed leading MMORPG in the world today and netted them over 11 million subscribers paying around US$ 15 a month each (plus retail). I’d say wait-and-see is certainly a valid approach.

• Star Wars MMO, Warhammer Online console ports “under consideration”
• Anticipating the rise of MMOs in console gaming

Via MTV Multiplayer