Blizzard Says StarCraft On Wii U ‘Might Work’
The lead designer of StarCraft II says there are several ways the popular real-time strategy series could make its way to consoles—and that under the right circumstances, Nintendo's upcoming Wii U might be a good fit.
Blizzard has traditionally focused on PC-only titles, but the brains behind massive franchises like Diablo, Warcraft, and StarCraft are no stranger to console gaming. The studio has confirmed that it's exploring options for a console version of Diablo III. Ports of the original Diablo and StarCraft have made their ways to PlayStation and Nintendo 64, respectively. And of course there's Blizzard's most infamous piece of vaporware, the elusive console game StarCraft: Ghost.
So while speaking to StarCraft II lead designer Dustin Browder in an extensive phone interview last week, I asked if he thought a game like StarCraft could work on consoles, particularly a system like the Wii U, which seems like the perfect fit for strategy games. He confessed that he hadn't seen Nintendo's upcoming console in action, so I gave him the basics: it's coupled with a touchscreen tablet controller that's sort of like an iPad with joysticks, buttons, and triggers. Basically, the whole kitchen sink.
"The problem I have with the iPhone interface is the big meaty sausages called my fingers that are always in the way," Browder told me, explaining that he thinks devices like the iPhone and iPad work well for games that allow you to casually lift up and put down your fingers, like tower defense.
"If I can control a cursor on the television with my hand on the touchscreen, that might be able to work."
"If I can control a cursor on the television with my hand on the touchscreen, that might be able to work," he said. "[But] because of the hotkey scenario, it's not like players actually play StarCraft with the mouse only—they play with the mouse and keyboard... We obviously allow new users to play mouse-only and that's really fun, but when you get serious about the game you do move into the mouse and keyboard space."
So maybe the Wii U wouldn't work for a real-time strategy game like StarCraft II. Or maybe it would, with some tweaking. Maybe if Browder and his team got a chance to play around with the tablet, they'd figure out a proxy for the keyboard. Maybe they'd come up with an entirely new idea for the franchise. Or maybe they'd leave with nothing at all.
Edited by Meelow100, 19 June 2012 - 07:43 AM.
