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Blizzard hasn’t been shy about telling the world they were working on a “controller test” for Diablo III. However, they have also been quick to point out that a console version of the game wasn’t being officially announced as its release wasn’t a certainty.

But as of today, it is.

Blizzard Community Manager Micah Whiple was asked to confirm or deny the existence of the console version of Diablo III by another Twitter user and, with a simple “Yup,” confirmed that the game is no longer PC exclusive:

TaNGoIX:
@Bashiok can you confirm or deny Diablo 3 coming to consoles? Thanks.

Bashiok:
@TaNGoIX Yup. Josh Mosqueira is lead designer for the Diablo console project.

Obviously, it is much too early to speculate about a date for Diablo III’s debut on consoles (or even which consoles it’ll appear on, for that matter). But confirmation that it’s a real game and not just a test is a good first step.

Here’s your big news for the day: Blizzard has begun development on Diablo III for the PS3 and Xbox 360! Except they’re not ready to announce it. In fact, the developer may not even release it if they don’t believe it’s as good a game as the PC version. What? Allow me to explain.

During one of the many panels at this weekend’s BlizzCon, Diablo III Game Director Jay Wilson revealed that a small team has begun work on developing console controls for the game. In fact, Wilson told panel attendees that “The movement actually feels better on the controller.”

So done deal, right? Not so fast. Destructoid spoke to Josh Mosquiera, Lead Console Designer, who revealed that development is still pretty preliminary: “We’re not announcing anything because, literally, there’s three of us on the team right now,” he said. “But that’s what we’re trying to do. We’re trying to build the best console team at Blizzard. Blizzard is really serious about going back to the console.”

The non-announcement announcement of Diablo III on consoles was further put into perspective by Wilson, who added, “[W]e don’t want to announce something until we’re sure.” So there’s a possibility the game may never escape the testing stages. But something tells me parent company Activision will be pushing hard to put Diablo III on the PS3 and Xbox 360 sometime in the future.

The PC version of Diablo III still has a vague “Early 2012” release date, so making a guess on when the console version might be released would be a fool’s errand at this point.

[Source: Joystiq, Destructoid]