StarCraft: Ghost canned

Blizzard has decided to "indefinitely postpone production" on StarCraft: Ghost, its action-oriented StarCraft spin-off for consoles, "while evaluating opportunities for utilising the additional power of the new and upcoming console systems".

In a press release sent out late on Friday, Blizzard said it was announcing plans "to focus the company's console-development efforts on the next generation", but for a game as maligned as Ghost the news is more likely to be met as acknowledgement of the game's long-running problems.

President and co-founder Mike Morhaime said the developer has "been impressed with the potential" of stuff like Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, and, "In addition to allowing us to determine the best course for StarCraft: Ghost, this review period will help us lay the groundwork for our future console games."

Any further plans for Ghost "as well as platform and release information" will follow at some point in the future. Judging by the release, Blizzard is still keen to do something StarCraft-related on consoles; it just won't be Ghost in its current state.

Originally unveiled at the Tokyo Game Show in 2002, StarCraft: Ghost had been in development at Nihilistic Software, only for Blizzard - notoriously protective of its games' quality - to announce in July 2004 that the firm had "completed its contribution", with development handed to Swingin' Ape Studios (who Blizzard later acquired outright) around the same time.

Despite its much publicised problems and delays, Ghost development continued - and it even featured at Blizzard's inaugural convention, BlizzCon, last October in playable form.