This is just...awesome. I'm so excited right now. PC gaming just bought itself 10 more years and my 8800 GTX is redeemed.

Joke post? Diablo, The Witcher, and several other RPG's would need to be seriously overhauled to even be playable with a gamepad.. to the point where they would basically be different game experiences all together. Dragon Age probably won't be coming to a console near you anytime either. The best WRPG's are still all PC games.. but hey.. at least Bethesda has properly defected to the multi-platform arena.

It's unlikely that people who refuse to play a PC the way it was designed to be played game will ever play Diablo 3. But then again I still haven't played Super Mario Brothers because that mouse patch isn't out yet.

PS. Europe is PC gamings biggest market, and lately they've been just as happy to file frivolous lawsuits in Euroland as anywhere else.. so maybe they should do it.Everyone is a comedian, I guess.

Piracy is damaging the PC games industry tremendously. Not every person who pirates a game would turn into a sale, but I believe it has a serious impact. I don't think it's 20:1, such as Crytek claims (20-40 million people played a pirated version of Crysis?), but it's not good, either. It's bad enough that you have previously exclusive PC developers going multiplatform.

Diablo 3 and Starcraft 2 will sell loads of copies, and you probably won't see Blizzard abandoning PC exclusives any time soon, because they know how to make it work. The thing is, their games almost all rely on a multiplayer infrastructures where it's very difficult to really enjoy the game to its maximum capacity with a pirated copy. Not every game can have such a system in place.. though.. there are games that don't which should, like Call of Duty 4.

The ratio of pirated games versus actual sales on consoles isn't even simular. The PSP is pretty highly effected by the issue as well though. PC gaming sure aint dead though, and Blizzard aims to prove it again, and again and again!

Diablo proves that point and click does not suck as a control scheme.. it's one of the greats. The Witcher is great, and then there's games like C&C3, Starcraft 2, World In Conflict, Spore, and dozens if not hundreds of other games that all utilize a point in click interface to some end. If you think that C&C3 really plays better with a joypad interface than the one it was intended for, than this really is a pointless conversation.

I would also tend to disagree that, well, any ARPG plays better on a console. Movement is only improved by an analog input when you NEED analog movement. There are hardly any examples of games that require analog movement, even outside of the ARPG spectrum. No single FPS benefits greatly from analog movement, even stealth games, like Thief and Splinter Cell control extremely well with the keyboard and mouse. The best example of games where you actually need a gamepad to play successfully are are third person games where you do not have direct or constant control over the camera.. stuff like Prince of Persia, Ninja Gaiden, Devil May Cry.. those games were born and bread on consoles and I'd never disagree that the gamepad is better there.

Oblivion plays much better on the PC. The interface is better, the controls are better (yes, down to movement) and it's just as (if not more) intuitive. Ditto for Mass Effect. Really. Both games control extremely well with a WASD interface, and the actual interface beyond the control of your avatar/character is just loads better. Mass Effect benefits greatly by trading clumsy radial menus in for hotkeys.

To be fair, there certainly are some exceptions. The Tales games obviously control better with their intended interface, as do games like Marvel Ultimate Alliance. It's likely that Too Human will as well, etc.

Diablo 3 won't launch day and date with the 360.. it's pretty damn unlikely that there will ever be a console release of Diablo 3. If Blizzard branches off into console development, it will be with original releases, like Starcraft Ghost! ;)

If you're really that uncomfortable playing games with a keyboard and mouse, that's your choice, but aiming is not the only advantage it delivers. People tend to underrate the keyboard in this conversation, especially on your end of the argument. Having five fingers (on one hand) that can independently press several keys at once, and move more quickly between movements is actually one of the key advantages to PC FPS.. it's not just that those games don't force you to use training wheels in the form of massive aim assists. Movement is better in PC FPS in ways that negates any advantage analog pacing could possibly deliver.

You get Fallout 3 on the same release day as the PC version though, and I'm sure the PC version will suffer as a consequence.. but at least we still have games like Diablo, The Witcher, and Dragon Age, as well as the best versions of Bethesda's games, and great ports of Bioware's console "exclusives."

If ergonomics are your main complaint re: PC gaming, well, there are ways to avoid RSI all together if you're really concerned.. but that seems like a cop-out response to me. Playing a PC game is no more detrimental to my hands and wrists than writing, or using CS3. Well, there was that one game of COD4 FFA to 1000 kills, that sorta hurt.

Can't people just let PC gamers get excited? This is an earth shattering announcement. It trumps anything E3 will have to offer for many people. I don't get why some people need to try to piss on our parade here.

You don't like the way the game controls, but you want to play it? How daft is that? Go play something you like instead and let us enjoy Diablo! The audience is already plenty wide, like Iso has already stated, Diablo has sold over 17 million copies and retail versions of the game are still being printed to this day (including D1, Blizzard Battle Chests FTW).

And yeah, I don't want to share the greatness of Diablo with people who want it to be a different game. You want it to be Too Human? Play that! Sheesh.

You can doubt Blizzard's sales records all you want, but I think it's pretty freaking obvious that they know what they're doing. The audience for Diablo is on the PC, right where they belong. Sure, if it were Too Human maybe it would outsell.. oh wait.. no.. in the long run (since people will be playing this game in 10 fuckin years!) D3 will outsell that game by a ton!I think Dragon Age will be a typical third person view. I also think it might stay a console exclusive, but now that they're with EA who knows, they might have to make a DS version as well. We know which version will be best, though :)

I hope we see Dragon Age at E3. I can't believe it's going to slip into 2009.

Typo, I meant PC exclusive. My bad.. don't worry, Dragon Age will definitely cater to our PC sensibilities. Bioware wants it to be the spiritual successor to Baldurs Gate after all, and we haven't seen an epic RPG from them in quite some time.