Although it’s only been announced for Sony’s PlayStation 4 so far, Blizzard confirmed that it’s also making an Xbox One version of its action role-playing game Diablo III. Speaking to IGN, the title’s lead producer Alex Mayberry explained that an Xbox One port of the game is in the works, but didn’t get into release details.
“I can’t confirm it at this point, as I don’t have a release date, at all for that,” Mayberry told IGN. “The way we develop, it’s as if there will be an Xbox One version, but until it’s announced there’s nothing official.”
For what it’s worth, Mayberry did go on to say that the PS4 version of the game would be available in the not so distant future, so hopefully development is near done for the Xbox One version of the Diablo III as well.
“It’s being worked on,” he told IGN. “I don’t have any release dates to announce, but it’s not far behind. They kind of have to wait for the PC side to wrap before they can completely finish, but they’ve been in parallel development with us the whole time. As we developed on the PS, they pulled it into the console version and then they make it work. So they’re still in the process of wrapping up that side of things, as they’ve had to wait for us to finish up. It won’t be long, but I can’t give an exact date as we still need to go through certifications.
“Our goal when developing on the console side is to not just port the game over. We want it to feel crafted for that console. Certainly the user interface will be completely retooled for the console side of things, but they’re also looking at a number of features that’d be different from the PC side. I can’t go into details though.”
Earlier in the year, Best Buy Canada and Future Shop briefly posted what appeared to be placeholder listings for an Xbox One version of the game. It’s highly unlikely that a studio would invest resources in developing a game that’s not a part of its release schedule. Perhaps Sony has secured some type of time exclusivity period with Blizzard for Diablo III, similar to what Microsoft has done with games like Plants vs Zombies: Garden Warfare and Peggle 2.
We’ll continue to keep an eye on this situation and will update things as more information becomes available. A port of Diablo III released last year on Xbox 360, so an Xbox One follow up isn’t too far-fetched.
[via IGN]
