Blizzard's ever-expanding console division is hiring more positions. Blizzard is taking a grassroot approach and everything tends to points to a big return to its console roots.
Beginning with The Lost Vikings in 1993, Blizzard's games have been ported to consoles with mixed results. Over the years the console department has released 8 games out of Blizzard's library of about 20 games, of which 4 were original games, and 4 were ported from the PC. The last original console game was Norse By Norse West: The Return of the Lost Vikings in 1996. When you look at the list of Blizzard's early releases at MobyGames, you see what they mean when they say that their roots are in console gaming.
With the acquisition of Swingin' Ape Studios, Blizzard has a console division of at least 40 people, not counting the existing employees, as well as several console-related job openings. StarCraft: Ghost has been confirmed as coming out for the Xbox and Playstation 2, so the jobs reading "Next-Gen" are not Ghost-related. It would seem that Blizzard is either preparing for possible future projects for the console division, or already has something underway.
Development of StarCraft began in 1996, and, at the time, it was still unannounced. After StarCraft: Ghost is released in 2006, Blizzard's console divison will be short of work unless they find something else to work on - another unannounced project. It makes no sense buy a company of 40 people for nothing, so Blizzard must be planning a big comeback in the console market, and Ghost is the ideal game to bring them back - long-awaited, high-quality, and based on the popular action/FPS formula. Blizzard is taking a grassroots approach, but in a big way.
Links
Blizzard employment page - View the new jobs
MobyGames - List of all Blizzard Games
