Activision Blizzard has delayed the release of StarCraft II until the first half of 2010 to coincide with the launch of its new Battle.net game service, which it says will be "similar to Xbox Live."
From the headline, I thought the 4 million forecast was a lifetime number, which would be way too low. 4 million in the opening quarter sounds quite doable.
"The beta testing for StarCraft hasn't started yet. If it starts in August and takes five to six months, then launching the game this year is next to impossible," said Lubert.
Pachter said that when the game does ship, he expects it to sell 4 million units in its opening quarter.
Following the statement from Activision that its forthcoming shooter Singularity will be delayed to 2010, Sterne Agee analyst Arvind Bhatia believes that the same fate is likely to befall Starcraft 2: Wings of Liberty.
It appears that StarCraft II will be losing one of the franchise's most popular features. In an interview with IncGamers, Rob Pardo, VP of game design indicated that LAN would not be supported for the upcoming RTS sequel. "We will not support it," he said. Instead, the only multiplayer for the game will be found through Battle.Net, Blizzard's online service that is currently being redesigned.
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This delay is extremely disappointing for me. I have been waiting for a new Blizzard RTS for years...