Starcraft II Pushed Into 2010 News

Activision Blizzard has announced via its Q2 2009 financial report that Starcraft II won't be released in 2009 and has been pushed into a 2010 launch window instead, as Blizzard prepares to re-launch its Battle.net service.

"Blizzard Entertainment has moved the anticipated release date of StarCraft II to the first half of 2010 to coincide with the re-launch of its upgraded Battle.net online gaming service," the company stated in its financials.

Blizzard's President, Michael Morhaime then expanded on some of the changes being made to Battle.net in Activision Blizzard's post-earnings conference call:

"In addition to supporting tournaments, rankings, and multi-player game matching for Starcraft 2 and future Blizzard games, the next generation of Battle.net will add social networking features, cross-game communication, unified login and account management, and more," he said. "Battle.net will bring together players from across all of our games including World of Warcraft, eventually allowing them to connect, communicate, and share experiences with each other through the service regardless of which Blizzard game.

"The new version of Battlenet is being integrated with Starcraft 2 more tightly than in any previous Blizzard game," Morhaime continued. "Over the past few weeks, it has become clear that it will take longer than expected to prepare the new Battle.net for the launch of Starcraft 2. This means . . . that we will not be ready to launch Starcraft 2 in 2009. We recognize that we only get one chance to make a first impression. It's much easier to retain a player that has a great initial experience than to bring them back after a mediocre one."

Thanks, Seeking Alpha.