Console Diablo "theoretically possible"

Speaking to Eurogamer for our Diablo III preview, Blizzard's vice president of game design Rob Pardo has admitted that a console version of Diablo is "theoretically posssible".

Blizzard told fans at last weekend's Worldwide Invitational event that it was working on Diablo III for PC and Mac exclusively, and had no plans for a console game at the moment. The decision was said to be motivated simply by PC being the most appropriate platform for the game.

However, asked if Blizzard could make a Diablo game for consoles, Pardo said, "I think it's theoretically possible. It would have some control changes that I think you'd have to make... But it's probably, of our major franchises, the one that's most console friendly, for sure."

Pardo - formerly lead designer on World of Warcraft, now occupying a design role with oversight of all Blizzard's titles - quickly focused on the practical and design problems of a console version.

"You'd need to think about a lot of the point-and-click spells, like point to area-of-effect, or things like line-damage in this direction," Pardo said. "Target selection is something you're going to lose on console, you're really going to be able to do targeting direction, but not specific targeting."

However, asked if this would mean a ground-up redesign, he disagreed. "Oh, I don't think it would be a redesigned game," he says firmly. "Out of StarCraft, Warcraft or WOW, Diablo would be the easiest game to translate. But it would still take a bit of work."