Ex-XBLA and PopCap VP Heads to Warcraft Maker

Greg Canessa, formerly VP of games platforms at casual publisher PopCap and before that general manager of Xbox Live Arcade, has taken up residence with Blizzard.

While hard facts about what Canessa will actually do at Blizzard are hard to come by at this point, unconfirmed reports - via a 'trusted source' of Joystiq - suggest he is working on an "unannounced project in the online space" (can't say we really expected to see it in any other space coming as it does from Blizzard). He's reportedly working with Blizzard's VP of game design, Rob Pardo.

Blizzard has shown affection toward Popcap's casual fare in the past, with the recent insertion of Peggle into WoW and the earlier inclusion of Bejeweled. Whether this means that Canessa's new project will be similarly casual or not is unclear. There is that fifth unannounced Blizzard project hanging in the air. Whether Caneesa's move relates to that or something entirely new... well, more news as we get it.

While exactly what Canessa's doing is unconfirmed, his departure from PopCap has been cemented in fact by the publisher itself. "This isn't going to have any material impact on our console presence and our strategy with respect to the consoles and the DS and the areas that Greg was heading up. We're still very committed to those", a spokesman said.

Despite Popcap's mobile game goodness, we, for one, are not saying "World of Warcraft on iPhone FTW! - nor indeed World of Warcraft for console!"

^{Source: Joystiq}