Not many people know this, but Blizzard wasn’t always a PC developer. As a matter of fact, before they made their mark in the PC gaming world, they used to develop games for Nintendo’s SNES exclusively (a relationship they continued to honor with the N64 port of Starcraft, and the announcement of Starcraft Ghost for the Gamecube). Today, Blizzard talked about the possibility of returning to Nintendo’s consoles in a big way, by discussing the possibility of Starcraft 2, their hit 2010 RTS, coming to Nintendo’s newest console.
In an interview with Kotaku, the lead designer of Starcraft 2, Dustin Browder, admitted that he had never actually seen Nintendo’s console in action, but that from whatever he understood of the Wii U’s capabilities, a Starcraft game on it could theoretically work.
“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,” he explained.
“If I can control a cursor on the television with my hand on the touchscreen, that might be able to work,” he said, giving the Wii U’s dual screen setup his thumbs up. However, he went on to explain, “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 is it possible on the Wii U or not? That’s a lot of mixed messaging there. He explained that currently, there is no console version of Starcraft in development, although they are always exploring the options. He went on to explain what his expectations from a Starcraft console game would be.
“It needs to match a very high quality level for control for us to consider a StarCraft move in that direction,” he said. “Again, if there is enough there, totally we could make a port. And if there’s not enough there, it still might be exciting to do a whole new title.
He explained that the console port would have to be on par with the PC version. “Like, if I’m a new user, I don’t wanna come over and see StarCraft on the Wii platform and StarCraft on the PC and go ‘oh, I guess it’s a Wii game,’ and get it and find out that was the bad version,” he said.
That makes it sound like a console version would be unlikely, but there’s yet hope. The Wii U’s touchpad plus motion controls have certainly caught his attention, and maybe there will be a Wii U Starcraft game sometime. Let’s wait and watch.