Diablo 3 for PS3 and PS4

[MoanaLisa]

On some Diable fan sites, there is sort of an uproar on how D3 was developed specifically for consoles and that it all makes sense now. They say its obvious now why D3 sucked because in the last third of its development they knew the console was coming into play, making a close port easier.

Not my words, but I do find it interesting to say the least, that the PC version was changed to make the switch easier, dumbed down etc

Not sure what to think of those accusations.

Here's what I think.

Diablo I was ported to consoles. Diablo II never was probably due to issues with complicated controls, etc. Because of this Blizzard over the years has likely lost sales in the hundreds of millions of dollars if not more. I'm quite sure that they're aware of this. Painfully so.

So, time to think about designing a releasable version of Diablo III. It doesn't take much imagination--none really--to imagine that when design meetings were started for D3, someone named Morhaime or Pardo raised their hand, brought this topic up and said something like "Let's not make this mistake a second time. Blizzard, after all, has been a console game provider for much of its history. We should get back to that. Build the best game you can but let's not put something into D3 that will keep it from being available at some future point on multiple platforms."

And there you are. Maybe you think this is terrible; maybe you think it just makes sense. Limitations are put onto designs all the time. Whether or not this actually happened is impossible to say but it's certainly possible.

---------- Post added 2013-02-21 at 02:33 PM ----------

Or Sony paid them a ton of cash to make it exclusive. Something tells me this "port" won't be in house developed.

It very likely will be. They had job listings for a D3 Console Game Developer long before the game was even released. As well, if you hunt around you can find an interview from 2011 (I think) with someone from Blizzard where they speak briefly about putting together a development team for the console version. Things change but I'm guessing that Blizzard will keep this inhouse.

---------- Post added 2013-02-21 at 02:38 PM ----------

Made money, but won't make it again. The D3 console port won't sell well, there are plenty of reviews to scare people away from buying it on consoles.

It's a slam dunk that it will make money. Development costs relatively are nothing at all compared to what they dumped into it over 10 years for the PC version. It will easily sell a couple of million copies and probably make back its costs during the first week if not the first day. It won't likely sell 10 million copies or anything stupidly huge like that but it will do well enough. There were plenty of reviews around about the PC version, not to mention terrible word-of-mouth, when they announced that they had hit around nine million units in sales and they still sold another three million plus after that.

This will likely be the easiest money they'll make all year.

[Glorious Leader]

This will likely be the easiest money they'll make all year.

I'm not convinced of that. Yes their costs should be low but how many more people do you think will buy this crap? Put aside the negative fan response for a minute how many console gamers do you think this game will appeal to? Combine that with the fact that it's exclusive to ps3 and that the game already sold a shit ton on PC. How many people are left to buy diablo 3? How much more demand do they honestly think their is for this game even without the negative fan reaction? Sales for d3 on ps3 and ps4 will be anemic at best. Everyone or nearly everyone who wants to play it has played it and either loves or it has been disapointed by it. The remaining market of players who could potentially buy it (having a ps3) and haven't already played it and would be interested in something that isn't CoD on the console is a very small market I feel. In addition to this it's likely going to be another 60 dollar title for a pc game that came out (by the time it releases for ps3) about a year or so ago. Yea I'm not that optimistic about it's release.

[Deleted]

I'm not convinced of that. Yes their costs should be low but how many more people do you think will buy this crap? Put aside the negative fan response for a minute how many console gamers do you think this game will appeal to? Combine that with the fact that it's exclusive to ps3 and that the game already sold a shit ton on PC. How many people are left to buy diablo 3? How much more demand do they honestly think their is for this game even without the negative fan reaction? Sales for d3 on ps3 and ps4 will be anemic at best. Everyone or nearly everyone who wants to play it has played it and either loves or it has been disapointed by it. The remaining market of players who could potentially buy it (having a ps3) and haven't already played it and would be interested in something that isn't CoD on the console is a very small market I feel. In addition to this it's likely going to be another 60 dollar title for a pc game that came out (by the time it releases for ps3) about a year or so ago. Yea I'm not that optimistic about it's release.

Your making sweeping caveats to support your case. To generalize all console players- of which there are a healthy number- as CoD players is facetious at best. This port will be a success for one good reason and that's the might of Blizzard's marketing. It wont replicate it's sales on the PC but it doesn't have to. If this port ends up being a sales dud Ill eat all my shoes. Some people can't help themselves being trampled by the Blizzard hype machine

[Glorious Leader]

Your making sweeping caveats to support your case. To generalize all console players- of which there are a healthy number- as CoD players is facetious at best. This port will be a success for one good reason and that's the might of Blizzard's marketing. It wont replicate it's sales on the PC but it doesn't have to. If this port ends up being a sales dud Ill eat all my shoes. Some people can't help themselves being trampled by the Blizzard hype machine

Obviously it wont but I'm not convinced it will make enough to even offset the costs of a port in and of itself. Who is left to buy diablo 3? The potential market of users who wanted to play and who have already played has been virtually exhausted in my opinion. What's left is people whom diablo has little to no appeal. Certainly not as a 1-2 year old 60 dollar title. Who is left to market to? You can only polish a turd and market it so much. If they aren't interested in diablo they aren't. CoD kids is just a generalization but you needn't take it as anything more than that. I'm not convinced that the majority of ps3 users or even a significant fraction of them would be interested in diablo3 and don't already own a pc with diablo 3 and would we willing to shell out 60 bucks for it. It's such a niche of a niche. Considering it's also console exclusive, were getting into a fraction of a fraction of the gaming populace.

[Scummer]

http://wow.joystiq.com/2013/02/22/di...-offline-play/

Any thoughts on this?
If it's true I'll be rather bummed out if it's not applied to the PC version. Even then I'm still skeptical of this actually being the case as online play has become too involved with how D3 was designed to work.

[Nerraw]

If they do allow offline play on the PS3/4, that means locally saved games. And since it's very likely that the Playstation D3 savegame structure will resemble the PC savegames, we're probably gonna see a number of new hacks/exploits emerge following this release.

Not to mention that the game will actually be run by the console, whereas the PC version is run by a server somewhere. Once that gets cracked, there will be actual working private servers everywhere. And again, it's likely new exploits will be discovered involving the official game servers too.

[Deleted]

Blizzard lost it a long time ago, now i only wish that d3 on ps4 flops hardly, they crippled my most favorite franchise and now they need to learn a lesson.
How could Metzen get up there and present this fail game for a new console? sony must be crazy to let them do this. They sold 12 mio copies, but how many of them really liked this game? This game is the most hated game in a decade.

I really dont care if blizzard goes completley console, because for every hardcore pc player they should be done a long time ago, atleast since d3 release.
I will laugh hard if they get Titan out and it will get bad sales. Blizzard get big because of hardcore players, no casuals would ever played wow today or bought diablo 3 if not the hardcore gamers supported their games.

From now on it will get only worse, time for a new dev team to take the crown.

thats all i have to say about d3/Blizz permanentley.

[Nerraw]

They sold 12 mio copies, but how many of them really liked this game?

Enough to have 5 times more public games now than in September.

And speak for yourself, we're plenty of people who enjoy Blizzard's games still.

[Deleted]

Enough to have 5 times more public games now than in September.

And speak for yourself, we're plenty of people who enjoy Blizzard's games still.

Do you see your point?

[MoanaLisa]

If they do allow offline play on the PS3/4, that means locally saved games. And since it's very likely that the Playstation D3 savegame structure will resemble the PC savegames, we're probably gonna see a number of new hacks/exploits emerge following this release.

Not to mention that the game will actually be run by the console, whereas the PC version is run by a server somewhere. Once that gets cracked, there will be actual working private servers everywhere. And again, it's likely new exploits will be discovered involving the official game servers too.

There are rumors in the wind concerning a new comprehensive battle.net client (job openings and the like mostly although some strings were discovered about it in the 1.0.7 data mining) which may have a use as a security/authentication wrapper around all games. That's wildly speculative even by my standards and remains to be seen of course. But I don't see a lot of technological problem with a theoretical session battle.net authentication/security check before offline play is allowed. By the time a PS3/4 version appears, there may be less concerns about piracy in any case. The always online business did it's job pretty well during the first six months after launch when it was really important. While companies thunder gloom and doom about piracy, at some point it becomes advertising too. Knock the original price of D3 down to $15 and charge $40 for an expansion, a lot of people won't bother with pirating that old of a title. Maybe.

[Spl4sh3r]

I don't see why people are having trouble with this, I mean it is not like it has many keys it requires to work well on console. I actually think it would work better on console.

[MoanaLisa]

sony must be crazy to let them do this. They sold 12 mio copies, but how many of them really liked this game? This game is the most hated game in a decade.

Noisy forums and metacritic reviews don't matter much in the scheme of things. It's fun to believe that they do but for average people they really don't. Word-of-mouth about D3 has been bad from the beginning and that didn't stop them from still selling 12 million copies. And don't kid yourself that that was all first week and presales. A sizable chunk of that--several million--came after the bad word of mouth had set in. Blizzard will make back it's limited costs on developing this easily. The rest will be gravy. And people seeing D3 on PS3/4 will likely see a game that's in reasonably good shape compared to what it was at launch. That may well drive some PC sales just when the expansion is around the corner.

---------- Post added 2013-02-22 at 02:28 PM ----------

I'm not convinced of that. Yes their costs should be low but how many more people do you think will buy this crap?

More than enough. Even sales seen as anemic will probably push into the black rather quickly. And that's really all that matters. People line up to buy 'crap' all the time.

[Deleted]

Dont kid yourself if you think D3 will sell much at launch of a new console with atleast 8-10 new games with breathtaking graphics.
If i remember correct D3 sold 5 millions at day one and almost 10 mio after 6 weeks, so there was not to much coming after that.

[Nerraw]

-snip-

I don't personally care a lot about the piracy issues. There always has and will be pirates.

My main problem is the effect it'll have for the legit players. Offline play requires the game to actually be on your computer and for D3 it currently is not, making it a lot harder for people to find security exploits. If the full game code (encrypted or not, everything is cracked eventually) is freely available, it'll become much easier for people to find the weak spots in the system and exploit them to the fullest. And with the RMAH, D3 is a very attractive game to crack for the shadier players. D2 was one of the most hacker-ridden games I have ever played. I do not wish D3 to turn into that.

[Deleted]

Can u play it on ps3 for free if u already have a Diablo III account?

[Nerraw]

Can u play it on ps3 for free if u already have a Diablo III account?

No one knows, but I'd say it's highly unlikely.

[MoanaLisa]

My main problem is the effect it'll have for the legit players. Offline play requires the game to actually be on your computer and for D3 it currently is not, making it a lot harder for people to find security exploits. If the full game code (encrypted or not, everything is cracked eventually) is freely available, it'll become much easier for people to find the weak spots in the system and exploit them to the fullest. And with the RMAH, D3 is a very attractive game to crack for the shadier players. D2 was one of the most hacker-ridden games I have ever played. I do not wish D3 to turn into that.

Fair points and points that I'll confess I'm largely blind to. I've been a found-only (with crafting) player for a long while now so I've checked out of the D3 economy altogether. What you raised though is quite possible and would be a big problem indeed.

[kail]

Can u play it on ps3 for free if u already have a Diablo III account?

Blizzard has made some cheesy moves on their games, but I doubt they will have you pay twice for a game like this. Battle.net games are now very account tied. Only way I see Blizz charging for another game is if they completely separate the online services between the two ports (which we have yet to find out).

I assume D3 in the Play Station will be a simple download and login. If you don't have a D3 account then they will charge for a new one.

[Deleted]

Blizzard has made some cheesy moves on their games, but I doubt they will have you pay twice for a game like this. Battle.net games are now very account tied. Only way I see Blizz charging for another game is if they completely separate the online services between the two ports (which we have yet to find out).

I assume D3 in the Play Station will be a simple download and login. If you don't have a D3 account then they will charge for a new one.

just try to buy I don't know lets say Far Cry 3 on PC, and then ask, why you cant play same game on console for free... yeah here's your answer.

[Leonard McCoy]

Yea I really really doubt theyll let you just use your pc game. Sony has to get it's cut to.