Diablo III Drops Always-Online and RMAH on Consoles

Penny Arcade has some interesting details on the console (PS3/PS4 for now, although it’s apparently not an exclusive) version of Diablo 3, and it’s apparent that some of the most controversial elements of the title will flat-out not be present on consoles.

There was some question about the offline play of the game, something that’s impossible in the PC version of Diablo 3. It was confirmed to me that the game will be playable offline on the PlayStation 3.

Which leads to some other changes, namely the removal of the real money auction house. (The ecosystems on the PC and console are very different,) Mosqueira explained. (There were some technical reasons we had to go with offline, but again once you have an offline experience, even if we wanted to bring in the auction house, it just becomes problematic. How do you validate? How do you make sure there is no duping or any of that stuff?)

Even though some things were lost, and there will be many Diablo players who consider those losses a good thing, the gains were worth it. (But we really felt that playing offline, and being able to move your console from the living room to your bedroom, which a lot of players do to play, is really important,) Mosqueira said.

Not lagging in single-player is a serious incentive for me to give the title a try.