Roughly six million addicts subscribers and Chinese Coke ads should be reason enough to bring
World of Warcraft to the consoles. Yet, the game's developer, Blizzard, remains hesitant. Says the company's chief operating officer Paul Sams:
We've met with Microsoft, we've met with Sony, and we are exploring these things, but the list of challenges is long. One really big challenge is that one of the key features of a massively multiplayer game, especially WOW, is consistent and regular content updates. They require hard drive space, and there's a finite amount of that on each of those platforms... On PC, we make it, we test it, we deploy it. On console, we could be waiting for days, because you've got to submit and test it. And if they don't like something, we've got to go back to the drawing board.
In short: Sams thinks console gaming isn't where it's at. And who's to say he's wrong? Blizzard has been incredibly successful by sticking with the PC, a platform that ultimate gives the company more freedom, control and, well, money. But, what does he think about console gaming's online service?
I think that Live will reign... [Microsoft] has a much longer track record and history of multiplayer gaming, and I think they absolutely will have the lead. It's going to be excruciatingly difficult for anyone - including Sony - to take that away from Microsoft. They're way too far ahead.
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