When the console version of Diablo 3 made its debut at last February’s Playstation Meeting, a lot of people assumed that the console port would be exclusive to Sony platforms. Those assumptions were proven wrong today, as Activision Blizzard has announced that their popular hack-n-slash is also coming to the Xbox 360 as well.
As with the PS3 version of the game, the Xbox 360 port will include all of the updates that have been added to the PC version since its initial release last year. Unlike the PC version, the console versions of the game will be playable offline and will not feature a real money auction house. Anyone who preorders either console port now will receive the bonus “Infernal Helm” item as an in-game bonus.
While Diablo 3 is also being ported over to the next-gen PS4, it looks like the Xbox One will be left out of the festivities. Joystiq asked a Blizzard rep about the possibility of an Xbox One port, and they replied with, “”We’re excited for console players to get their hands on Diablo 3, but we don’t have any further platform announcements to share at this time.”
I’m interested to see how Diablo sells on a console: I don’t doubt that Blizzard will put out an accurate port and will find a way to make the controls work with a gamepad, but I wonder if the game’s mixed reception on PC will hurt the game’s sales on console. While the original PC version was a big sales success when it was first released, the game quickly experienced a rapid decline in the number of players in the weeks after its launch. At the very least, Blizzard seems to be aware of the problem and they’ve removed Diablo 3’s two most controversial “features” (the always-online DRM and the real money auctions,) from the console version.
Diablo 3 will be released for the Xbox 360 and PS3 on September 3rd.
Source: Battle.net
