[Update: Canessa becomes project director for Battle.net]

Greg Canessa, who has served as PopCap VP of game platforms since departing his position as general manager of Xbox Live Arcade two years ago, is set to leave his post for a job at World of Warcraft developer Blizzard.

The news comes on the back of Blizzard’s increased interest in the casual space, with PopCap having recently crafted Bejeweled and Peggle add-ons for World of Warcraft which gamers can download and play in their WoW downtime.

Kotaku first broke the news of Canessa’s plans to leave PopCap, before a rep confirmed the story to Joystiq.

"We are sorry to see him go and we wish him the very best,” said a PopCap spokesperson. “It's been a pleasure working with him and his move is largely predicated on it being a big personal and professional opportunity for him. 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."

Around the time of his departure from Microsoft, Canessa told this site that PopCap had the potential to be “the next Blizzard or EA.”

Update: Blizzard has confirmed that Canessa has joined the firm and that he will work on the next version of online gaming service Battle.net.

“Yes, we can confirm that Greg Canessa has taken a position at Blizzard Entertainment as project director for Battle.net. He will report to our vice president of online technologies and work closely with the executive team to help fine-tune the next version of Battle.net, currently in development," a company spokesperson told wowinsider.