A large part of the success of the last few Elder Scrolls games is due to the Xbox 360 and the Playstation 3. Oblivion came out on both consoles near their launch, and it effectively kickstarted the franchise by providing thousands of gamers desperate for new content with an open world worthy of exploring for hundreds of hours. When Skyrim finally launched late last year, it easily surpassed four million copies in its first few days of sale, thanks in large part to the units it moved on the consoles.

This has left many wondering about Bethesda's Elder Scrolls MMO, The Elder Scrolls Online. Without the consoles to bolster its install base, will the highly-anticipated game be able to hold on to its user base, or will it crumble under the weight of WoW and its numerous free-to-play competitors?

Now, new information has surfaced suggesting that The Elder Scrolls Online might just come to consoles after all. In an interview with GamesIndustry, Zenimax Online's head Matt Firor explained that the main reason we haven't seen The Elder Scrolls Online up and running on a console is that the company just isn't sure about where the next generation of consoles is going. "There are a lot of rumors about the next-gen coming back together with PCs," he explained, "It seems like things are going back to a more standard platform. That being said, we haven't thought about it heavily right now. The worst thing you can do is worry about new platforms while in development."

Firor went on to suggest that we might start seeing more and more MMOs coming to consoles as they get stronger, and as free-to-play and pay-to-play games become more standard on the consoles. This would require Microsoft in particular to open up their infamously restrictive policies on game pricing, but it's something that simply needs to happen if the next Xbox is to contend with machines capable of supporting free-to-play games and the like.

All of this commentary suggests that we could, in fact, see The Elder Scrolls Online come to consoles, just not the ones sitting in our living rooms right now. A future release on next-gen systems seems far from out of the question, though.