Answer: Not soon enough!
That’s about the only answer I could come up with. Seriously, I know all the reasons why it might not be a good idea to release a estimated day… But I don’t care about those I want to know! Here’s a few:
1. They want to be able to easily push the date back without backlash.
My answer to this would be how come games can almost never estimate the time it will take to produce these things? Especially in the later stages of development. My second point on this one would be can’t they just grossly over estimate it so that when they have it done early they are looking like champs?
2. They are strategically planning to make the most money.
Now this one I can’t argue with, but it still makes me wish I knew. Releasing a date would also let their competition in on information they wouldn’t otherwise have. But I don’t know, would that really be a problem for Starcraft 2 or Diablo 3, I highly doubt it.
3. Along the lines of the last point they are planning the release to make the most money.
And of course not take subscribers away from their other games (like WoW) prematurely. Now Blizzard is in a interesting situation here. How do they release what should be a extremely popular game without cannibalizing their own subscribers? Its tricky for sure and has a lot of elements to it. I’m not sure what an answer would be, but if they are planning a release around their other games I’d guess it won’t be until late this year we’ll see it out. Or after whatever period of time it takes for the last WoW expansion to get stale.
All that being said I’ll predict Fall this year for release. The game looks fantastic in videos and really looks pretty complete from what we’ve seen of Terrans and Protoss. But to make the most from it I think that is probably going to be their target. Don’t get me wrong, I’d love to see it in March or April, I just don’t think it will happen. Hell it could be Christmas or later till we see this though I really hope not. What do you think?
8 comments:
I think SC2 will come this year, Diablo 3 next year. Along with WoW will be the three Golden eggs of Activision blizzard - along wt guitar hero of course.
SC2 will sell loads (especially in S korea) but i think Blizz mantra of "When it is done" means late this year as has it got a date for beta testing?
I'm gonna call spring 2010 for SC2 and Fall 2010 for Diablo3.
I dunno, just seems like what will happen a far as I'm concerned.
Ouch 2010 for SC2, that hurts... but hey it could happen :-( D3 I do think is quite a while out still.
I don't know if SC2 has a beta or when, but I do believe some peeps in Blizz have been playing it (or a version of it) for quite some time now. Its from a friend though so not first hand knowledge.
They had it playable in skirmish maps during the Blizz invertational last year.
I think SC2 this year, Diablo 3 next year - Blizz are a company that wants to make money so maximising sales means releasing products at times which give you the most hype and no competition. One of the reasons why DoW 2 is out now rather than going head to head.
I'll be rooting for SC2 this year for sure Tom, sooner rather than later would be nice.
december 17 2009 nope its not out. and it wont be out till december of 2010 probably. although im dreading that
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