This isn’t exactly new news though since NCsoft announced back in 2010 that they were working on PS3 and Xbox 360 versions of B&S and Guild Wars 2 (since then, not much new news).
This updated announcements comes amidst revenue decreases for their PC MMO titles (with Guild Wars 2 posting 5 straight quarters of declining revenue). These losses are being offset by gains in their mobile IP’s including their recently launched (Korea only) Lineage M.
NCsoft also confirmed that some of their internal teams have been shifted from PC to mobile development. None of this is surprising since that has been pretty much the trend amongst smaller studios (NCsoft being one of the bigger publicly traded ones has more leeway in terms of resources).
It’s also not surprising why many PC MMO IP’s are being leveraged on other platforms like mobile and console; it’s just an additional way to extract as much revenue from that existing IP (since the production expenses incurred for graphical and audio assets can be mostly reused).
Naturally, not every IP is suitable for console (with mobile, compromises and changes are often times the norm; often times outsourced to mobile design studios like Netmarble as one example) whether it be original design restrictions which made adaptation more difficult or for IP’s that have not had much success on the PC.
B&S actually seems to be a natural fit given its martial arts inspired combo combat. NCsoft had no additional details except that this won’t be released until 2018 at the earliest.
