Nathan Lyons-Smith, Executive Producer for Hearthstone, has revealed that Blizzard is still not ruling out a console version of the popular collectible card game, particularly now that Microsoft is keen to get its games on as many devices as possible.
Speaking as part of a group interview attended by Eurogamer, Lyons-Smith commented, “There’s a level of investment that we need to make to make that happen, primarily in terms of UI and UX and making sure that it’s very natural to go and play a card game on those platforms. I know it’s possible – Duels of the Planeswalkers for Magic [The Gathering], many years ago now, was absolutely delightful with the controller – so I know we can do it.”
It’s a matter of are there enough players there wanting that beyond who’s going to pull out their phone or their tablet to play? It’s been so exciting seeing that segment of the market grow such that we can then say, yeah, actually, let’s go and do this.
“If we’re going to bring it specifically to that living room big screen platform, we would want to make sure that the full experience is optimised for that mode that you’re in,” commented Tyler Bielman, the game’s director. “So let’s get there and let’s do it right and we’ll find the right time to do it,” added Lyons-Smith.
In the future as we explore console and handheld, we’d probably go as wide as we could. Certainly we have a different owner now than we did three years ago and they’re more invested in Xbox and ‘anything’s an Xbox’. Their high-level goal [being] games playable anywhere.
Hearthstone was released in 2014 and takes the form of a turn-based card game between two opponents, utilising decks of 30 cards alongside a selected hero and a unique power. It was originally subtitled Heroes of Warcraft, and builds on the existing lore of that franchise, including characters and relics from the Warcraft universe. The game is currently available on Windows, MacOS, iOS, and Android.
[Source – Eurogamer]