StarCraft II

During an Activision Blizzard Conference Call, it was confirmed that StarCraft II will have it’s release date moved to “first half of 2010″. While that may seem like a delay, Blizzard never announced a release date, making it the first announcement of a release date for StarCraft II.

The later release date for StarCraft II is due largely to the relaunch of Battle.net service. Blizzard feels that Battle.net is an “integral part of the StarCraft II experience and will be an essential part of all of our games moving forward.” Activision CEO Bobby Kotick said during an investor call today that the new iteration of Battle.net will likely be ready “early next year.”

Battle.net will feature account management, social networking features and more. The new version of Battle.net is tightly integrated with StarCraft II. During the call they stated, “Over the past couple of weeks, it has become clear that it will take longer than expected to prepare the new Battle.net for the launch of the game.” Mentioning it’s better to push into 2010 and offer a superior service than to disappoint gamers with a poor service.

Maybe we’ll hear more about the StarCraft II beta at the fourth BlizzCon. Stealthyslyth will be covering BlizzCon later this month!