As the 2009 Game Developers Conference heated up last week, so too did the game-industry rumor mill. The spark was a report on GamesIndustry.biz bearing the seemingly unequivocal headline "Blizzard in talks with Microsoft for next Xbox."
The title alone stirred up a frenzy, given that Blizzard Entertainment's World of Warcraft is the biggest massively multiplayer online game on the planet. Its nearly 12 million subscribers help Blizzard--one half of Activision Blizzzard--generate over $100 million in revenues each month. Were any console-maker to successfully woo the notoriously PC-focused developer-publisher, the resulting royalties and sales would give it a major leg up in the tooth-and-nail console wars.
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