Part gossip, part geek-fantasy, the World of Warcraft Xbox 360 rumor has been around for a while. Prior to E3 2005 in May, scuttlebutt was rampant that Microsoft would announce the massively multiplayer role-playing game was coming to its next-gen console at its press conference. The company did indeed announce a 360 MMORPG...problem was it was Final Fantasy XI, which is already available for both the PC and PlayStation 2--hardly a system-selling title.

Were WOW to become available for the 360, though, it would be a much different story. Given World of Warcraft's popularity--it already has over 4.5 million subscribers and has been among the top five top-selling PC titles since its 2004 release--many gamers would gladly buy a 360 just to get in on the Azeroth action. Also, the PC hardware required to run the game costs several times the hard-drive enabled 360's $399 sticker price.

Enthusiasm for a 360 WOW was flared up with the recent discovery of several Blizzard job listings for next-generation console positions. The site has positions for next-gen engine programmers, next-gen tools programmers, and next-gen game physics/collision programmers.