StarCraft II is currently scheduled for a release on the PC and Mac. While that’s good news for PC gamers, it may complicate things for people who either don’t have the advanced hardware to run such a game on their PCs or don’t particularly do the whole PC gaming thing. And while the StarCraft brand is indeed a perfect fit for the PC, it wouldn’t be such a far-fetched idea for the folks over at Blizzard to make a multiplatform StarCraft II, now would it?
Obviously, the PC is the ideal choice for a game such as StarCraft II, but the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 home consoles could easily handle the game and all of its online multiplayer greatness. Then there’s the ever-bashed Wii. Sure, it’s not as powerful a machine as its current-gen counterparts, but then the Nintendo 64 wasn’t as powerful as the PC back in 2000, and that platform received its own version of StarCraft. Downgrade the graphics a bit, make the necessary mechanic tweaks, and you’ve got a game that Wii owners will sink their teeth into, Blizzard!
Then there are the handhelds. Obviously, the DS and PSP would probably have a difficult time running a full port of StarCraft II, but what about a different version of the game? A smaller, campaign-based version of StarCraft II on the DS and PSP handhelds would certainly fare well if done correctly, and it could encourage gamers to play the PC version of the game to get the full-screen, full-sized experience, much like Age of Empires on the DS managed to do.
There are many positives to StarCraft II going multiplatform. The most obvious reason is that the game would garner an even larger following from those who stick with console gaming. Then there’s the whole concept of third-party support. Blizzard would be helping out Sony, Nintendo, and Microsoft by porting the game to their home consoles, and they would be helping Blizzard by attracting a larger audience to the StarCraft franchise and possibly sparking interest in other games by the developer.
Ultimately, only the people over at Blizzard know what they plan on doing with the StarCraft license. The game will not suffer if released solely on the PC, but one can only imagine the success it would have if it went multiplatform.
