‘There’s a Level of Investment We Need’: Despite the Popularity of Nintendo Switch and Being Owned By Microsoft, Blizzard Discusses Why Hearthstone Still Isn’t on Consoles

Blizzard has said that its Warcraft-themed collectible card game Hearthstone is still not available on consoles because the team needs “a level of investment… to make that happen.”

That’s according to executive producer Nathan Lyons-Smith, who recently revealed that because of the 12-year-old game’s aging code — estimated to be 16 years old — any port to console must be done “right” and only when the team finds “the right time to do it.”

“There’s a level of investment that we need to make that happen, primarily in terms of UI and UX, and making sure that it’s very natural to go and play a card game on those platforms,” Lyons-Smith said, as reported by Eurogamer. “I know it’s possible — Duels of the Planeswalkers for Magic [The Gathering], many years ago now, was absolutely delightful with the controller — so I know we can do it.

“I asked an engineer who’d been on the project a long time, and he estimates the code is 16 years old,” Lyons-Smith continued, “and the team was 15 people 16 years ago. And so there’s more of an effort to go: ‘I want to make sure when we go that it’s awesome.’ That it doesn’t just feel like, yeah, they ported it here, and you can play…

“I want to make sure that when we go, we’re going to go, and it’s going to feel awesome for players that love that form factor, whether they’re leaning back on the couch or sitting on the couch with their handheld.”

Hearthstone originally launched in 2014 on PC, with a mobile and tablet version following very shortly after. Over the years there have been numerous calls for the game to launch on consoles — and particularly Nintendo Switch, for handheld play. But Blizzard has never gotten around to it.

Game director Tyler Bielman added: “If we’re going to bring it specifically to that living room big screen platform, we would want to make sure that the full experience is optimized for that mode that you’re in.”

Now, of course, with Blizzard owned by Xbox and parent company Microsoft, there could be more pressure than ever to bring the hugely-successful card game to console players. However, with Xbox’s high-level goal of enabling gamers to play “anywhere,” the Hearthstone team acknowledged an expectation to go “as wide as we could” to reach as many players as possible, regardless of platform.

“In the future, as we explore console and handheld, we’d probably go as wide as we could,” Lyons-Smith added. “Certainly, we have a different owner now than we did three years ago, and they’re more invested in Xbox and ‘anything’s an Xbox’. Their high-level goal [being] games playable anywhere.”

Hearthstone’s Cataclysm-themed expansion is set to launch on March 17, marking the return of Colossal cards and introducing a brand new story.

Vikki Blake is a reporter for IGN, as well as a critic, columnist, and consultant with 15+ years experience working with some of the world’s biggest gaming sites and publications. She’s also a Guardian, Spartan, Silent Hillian, Legend, and perpetually High Chaos. Find her at BlueSky.