Blizzard Announces Diablo III

The rumors were true: Blizzard Entertainment has announced Diablo III. The game is currently in development for Mac OS X and Windows.


Blizzard Announces Diablo III

Blizzard unveiled Diablo III at a worldwide invitational gaming event held in Europe over the weekend, and has posted details to its Web site, including a cinematic trailer and gameplay video that offers an in-depth look at some of the game's new capabilities and features.

A new sequel to Blizzard's action role-playing game series, this is the first new Diablo game to be announced since Diablo II was released in 2000. Since then the company has turned its attention to its Warcraft franchise, first with Warcraft III and more recently with World of Warcraft; the company is also working on StarCraft II, a followup to its enormously popular real time strategy game series.

Diablo III is set in a fantasy world populated by vicious monsters and demons. It's the world of Sanctuary, a land saved twenty years prior by the heroes of the first two games -- heroes who lost their minds by facing the armies of the Burning Hells. The game retains the familiar isometric (three-quarters perspective) view of previous installments, though graphics and gameplay have, of course, been updated to suit modern computer systems. Blizzard confirms that the game is being developed simultaneously for both Mac OS X and Windows, as the company has long done for its games.

Five character classes will be included in the game, and players who tire of single-player action will be able to participate online using Blizzard's Battle.net service.

System requirements have not yet been announced, nor has a release date or pricing -- Blizzard famously tells the public that its games will be released when they're done. Look for many more details to be offered prior to the game's release.

EA Games Plans to Develop for Wii

Special versions of Madden football, NBA Live and others are in the works for the Wii.


EA Plans New Sports Games for Wii

VANCOUVER (Reuters) - Video-game publisher Electronic Arts Inc unveiled two initiatives last week to breathe new life into its sports business by making games that are easier to play and customized for Nintendo Co Ltd's popular Wii console.

Key games such as "Madden" football, "NBA Live" and "FIFA" soccer will come out in special versions for the Wii, which has become the best-selling game system by drawing in older and female players with friendly graphics and simple motion-sensing controls.

EA is also starting a sub-brand dubbed Freestyle that will be home to a new set of games not tied to any existing league and therefore free of expensive licensing rights. The first game will be "Facebreaker," a cartoonish and whimsical boxing game due out in September.

"We can't be blind to the fact that different consumers are coming into games now and shame on us if we can't evolve and develop something for that crowd," Peter Moore, head of EA Sports, told Reuters.

EA expects to have sold about $1.3 billion worth of sports games in its fiscal year just ended in March, accounting for more than a third of total revenue.

Known for their sharp graphics and attention to detail, EA's sports games are among the industry's best-selling titles each year. But many gamers have criticized them for including few groundbreaking new features and increasingly complex controls that make them tough to play.

Showing off this year's lineup of sports titles at a new conference in EA's Vancouver studio, Moore said the company had not forgotten about its core fans who want the most realistic experience.

"While we have no intention whatsoever of dumbing down the experience that we all love and that drives this multibillion

dollar business ... we need to make sports games more approachable," Moore said.

Caught off guard by the Wii's success following its launch in late 2006, EA tried to adapt its sports games to the Wii, an effort Moore admitted amounted to basically tacking on the motion controls without changing the core game.

Moore, who joined EA from Microsoft Corp's games division to head up the sports business last September, said the new approach to the Wii marked a dramatic rethinking of what those players wanted from a game.

The model was "Wii Sports," a title from Nintendo included with every Wii that took bowling, baseball, golf, tennis and boxing and reduced them to a handful of simple motions.

"We learned some hard lessons. That was the type of sports experience they were looking for and we saw that and decided we needed to redefine what our sports games were about," Moore said. This year, EA's top sports games for the Wii will have "All-Play" added to their titles.

While versions for Microsoft's Xbox 360 and Sony Corp's PlayStation 3 will be similar to previous years, the "All-Play" titles will have options to use simpler controls and quicker games.

"It's like how swimming pools have a deep end and a shallow end. EA Sports has really only built a swimming pool with a deep end. It's intimidating for a lot of people to jump right in the deep end. With All-Play, we're building a shallow end," Moore added.

(Editing by Andre Grenon)

Copyright 2007 Reuters.