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As surely the game would be an excellent fit for Nintendo Switch?
"Hello everyone and welcome back to another GRTV news. Today we're going to talk a little bit about Hearthstone, mainly because the embargo on the spotlight for Hearthstone lifted yesterday, which means we can tell you about a bunch of different things that we picked up from our time in California to visit Blizzard.
One of those things, when we were out there, we had the opportunity to speak with some of Hearthstone's leadership, and of course when you speak with those sort of people involved you get to ask all the tough questions, or the questions that the other folk involved in the game might not be able to answer."
"And to that end, once again I asked about the consoles. You know, will Hearthstone ever come to consoles? And it's a question that I think is particularly interesting to ask for the simple reason that while Hearthstone probably doesn't necessarily suit the controller gameplay format of Xbox and Playstation, Nintendo Switch, to me, seems like the perfect place to play Hearthstone.
A dedicated gaming platform that can operate and act in the exact same way as a tablet or a smartphone, and yet also has the tactile feel of Joy-Cons that, for the Switch 2 at least, can even utilise mouse mode. So that basically ticks all the boxes of how Hearthstone is played on both PC and mobile."
"And of course, because it's available on mobile, you can't say that the performance of Hearthstone won't be able to translate to the Switch 2, because it's available on mobile devices. So anyway, I think it's a key question, especially with the rise of handheld gaming platforms. Some of them use Windows, some of them use different platforms that make the game accessible, despite the fact that it's not available on Steam. So anyway, let's dive on in and have a look.
So yeah, Blizzard provides an update on a Hearthstone console port. We know it's possible. There's hope, even if there are no announcements to make as of today. So despite being a huge hit on PC and mobile devices, Hearthstone has never made the leap to consoles. While you can argue that the card-battling mechanics don't inherently suit controller-based gameplay, the setup of a Nintendo Switch with a touchscreen and even mouse controls on the Switch 2 surely make the platform a firm contender for Hearthstone. Still, Blizzard has yet to share anything more on this front."
"As part of our recent trip to Irvine, California to visit Blizzard's headquarters, GamerX had the opportunity to sit down with executive producer Nathan Lyons-Smith, wherein we talked briefly about whether Hearthstone could come to consoles, and even have dedicated versions for the increasingly large amount of handheld PC units and more home console-geared desktop systems like Steam Machine. Lyons-Smith told us nothing to announce now, but he did continue by explaining that there's a level of investment that we need to make to make that happen, primarily in terms of UI and UX, making sure it's very natural-to-use.
So yeah, once again, Blizzard are kind of dragging their feet on this."
"I kind of don't understand why, because if you can get Hearthstone, for example, on the Nintendo Switch platforms, ideally on both Nintendo Switch 1 and 2, you're tapping into an audience that's over 150 million players strong.
Now, I know that mobile is massive, and so is PC, but to me, if you can get just a decent Hearthstone port on that platform, especially if it's a platform that is particularly geared, I'd say it's more geared to less intense gaming as well.
You know, for example, Overwatch suits PlayStation and Xbox because, generally speaking, PlayStation and Xbox players are more akin to PC players in the way that they like to enjoy video games, whereas Nintendo Switch gamers, typically speaking, they tend to prefer those sort of more single-player or more slower-based games."
"I think, in part, down to the platform itself, you wouldn't necessarily – well, at least I probably wouldn't necessarily sit down and try and play Overwatch on a handheld screen. It just particularly wouldn't work for me.
But, that being said, Hearthstone, being able to sit on your sofa and being able to play Hearthstone on a handheld device that means you don't have to sit in front of a monitor or you don't have to play on a little tiny smartphone screen or a dedicated tablet, to me, that is like the perfect marriage, in a way.
So, I'd like to see it happen eventually. I'm not too bothered about Hearthstone coming to Xbox or PlayStation, but I am very – I do really think it suits the Switch platform. And, likewise, again, we're seeing an increasing amount of handheld devices. As of recent, Steam, DEC, Asus, ROG Ally X, Lenovo Legion Go, and there are rumours of an Xbox handheld, there are rumours of a PlayStation handheld, there are rumours of all these different things."
"And, you'd have to look at it and you'd have to say that Blizzard would be mad not to try and tap into those platforms as well and bring Hearthstone to them. But, again, they have nothing to share at the moment, nothing to announce at the moment, but maybe something will change at BlizzCon. They did tease a lot of different things at BlizzCon, including that Hypotenuse reveal, which, by the way, in the interviews, Blizzard were asked what the Hypotenuse reveal was, and if the actual reveal does rhyme with Hypotenuse like they teased, it doesn't.
It's just a silly gag sort of thing, but I'd be surprised if Hypotenuse wasn't at least a clue. So, maybe look into more about the word. You know, the Hypotenuse is the long part of the triangle, so maybe it's something to do with connecting two points. I don't know. I'm not too sure. They were very coy about telling us about that, but the point is that they have big plans at BlizzCon in September, so maybe they've got something there."
