When will they announce the approximate release date? ifra

[dickydoo]

Re: When will they announce the approximate release date?

Hello, anticipation of Diablo 3 is very frustrating. Everyday I look for a hint of information about the game on blizzard.com, diii.net, and youtube. I am going nuts! I want the best game but geez I think they are teasing people on the way they come out with information every so often. I have seen interviews that they are so called "a good ways in development" and "blizzard is working diligently on Diablo 3." This is just a game and its not even out. Reading forums and other diablo 3 related information consumes most of my day haha.

 

[Beowulf]

Re: When will they announce the approximate release date?

If I had to guess


December 2010 at the very earliest.

I would not be surprised if something is said but then end of 2009 and it will end up being released end of 2010.

 

[sbn]

Re: When will they announce the approximate release date?

Just think if D3 was to surpass Duke Nukem? I think we would have a storming of the Bastille type reaction, or shall I say storming of the Blizzard headquarters by convention fans.

For those that are unfamiliar, Duke Nukem Forever was announced in 1998, and it is STILL in development....supposedly.

And FYI, the old line "when it's ready" is a nice marketing ploy to avoid actually ever saying "We have no frigging clue". I guarantee you 100% that.

I will say that release of the game should have no relation to SC2's release. I hardly can believe they would be allowed to hold off on one game intentionally just to release another. It simply does not work that way as the payoff is too negligible. In the end it always comes down to development costs, and companies need to recoup that as quickly as possible (hence why so many games come out the door with so many bugs). At the moment D3 is 100% expense and 0% revenue. Their bosses at Activision, and more importantly their shareholders care about one thing, and one thing only.

 

[raveharu]

Re: When will they announce the approximate release date?

Whatever it is, although I know I won't be able to play the game any sooner, I just wish for more gameplay videos of other places, and of course the 2 remaining classes.

The old ones are getting a lil boring

 

[Mackan]

Re: When will they announce the approximate release date?

I think there is very little information about Diablo 3 in general so far. They haven't even started showing up items. Perhaps they will stay tightlipped about Diablo 3 until it's released, but since things are so silent, my guess is that the release is very far away. Could slip into 2011, which is just a total failure if their goal is to release a game 1.5 year after it's announced.

 

[raveharu]

Re: When will they announce the approximate release date?

I think there is very little information about Diablo 3 in general so far. They haven't even started showing up items. Perhaps they will stay tightlipped about Diablo 3 until it's released, but since things are so silent, my guess is that the release is very far away. Could slip into 2011, which is just a total failure if their goal is to release a game 1.5 year after it's announced.

Not really, Blizzard aims for perfection, thus they have this delaying trend, and they are still top popular games :whistling:

 

[BravoEchoNiner]

Re: When will they announce the approximate release date?

My gut leads me to believe that with blizzcon this year (August 21-22) we will see the 4th class and new game info/videos. Up until then, look mostly for beastiary updates, new blizzcasts and just random posts from Bashiok. I, personally, would be very suprised to see blizz release D3 in 2011 though. I would say since D2 classic released 6/29/00 and they announced D3 on 6/28/08 they would try and shoot for the round number of 10 years, i.e. July/August 2010, rather than push it out longer. If there is one thing that blizzard knows how to do, its market their products. Blizzard knows they are making one of the most anticipated games in recent history; they arent saying much because they want to build hype and anticipation for their product. Of coarse they want you to think that D3 is a crazy amount of time away. That way when they do release it and we all hear about it sooner than we thought we were going to, all of us are at the store anxiously waiting to part with our $49.95

 

[PKCharum]

Re: When will they announce the approximate release date?

It was always a long wait for all of their games, but it has always been a great feeling to know that the wait was always worth it
Release date:
Summer 2010.. although I was really hoping for Fall 2009... =/

 

[Flux]

Re: When will they announce the approximate release date?

just since I enjoy googling stuff up.

http://pc.gamespy.com/pc/world-of-warcraft/563565p1.html
WoW launch date announced Nov 4, 2004. Released on Nov 22, 2004.
3 weeks before.

http://pc.gamespy.com/pc/world-of-warcraft-expansion/744993p1.html
Burning Crusade release announced Nov 9, released Jan 16th.
9 weeks before.

http://pc.gamespy.com/pc/world-of-warcraft-wrath-of-the-lich-king/910078p1.html
WoW Lich King date announced Sept 15, released Nov 13.
8 weeks before.

We'll have another, more useful, data point on this come SC2's release, since that game will be more D3-like, in terms of not being an MMO and not being an expansion pack.

Going by that past history Blizzard will announce a release date at most 2 months before, and at least 3 weeks. We won't get a date until nearly the end of the beta, when they're absolutely sure they can make it. i'd imagine there's a lot of preparation required to launch a game that they expect to sell like, 5m copies in a week. Just the process of physically manufacturing and distributing all of those games. Hopefully getting battle.net up to snuff won't be such an ordeal, as much experience as they've had with WoW, and will have for a year or more of SC2 before D3's ready.

 

[Mcwhopper]

Re: When will they announce the approximate release date?

just since I enjoy googling stuff up.

http://pc.gamespy.com/pc/world-of-warcraft/563565p1.html
WoW launch date announced Nov 4, 2004. Released on Nov 22, 2004.
3 weeks before.

http://pc.gamespy.com/pc/world-of-warcraft-expansion/744993p1.html
Burning Crusade release announced Nov 9, released Jan 16th.
9 weeks before.

http://pc.gamespy.com/pc/world-of-warcraft-wrath-of-the-lich-king/910078p1.html
WoW Lich King date announced Sept 15, released Nov 13.
8 weeks before.

We'll have another, more useful, data point on this come SC2's release, since that game will be more D3-like, in terms of not being an MMO and not being an expansion pack.

Going by that past history Blizzard will announce a release date at most 2 months before, and at least 3 weeks. We won't get a date until nearly the end of the beta, when they're absolutely sure they can make it. i'd imagine there's a lot of preparation required to launch a game that they expect to sell like, 5m copies in a week. Just the process of physically manufacturing and distributing all of those games. Hopefully getting battle.net up to snuff won't be such an ordeal, as much experience as they've had with WoW, and will have for a year or more of SC2 before D3's ready.

It's nice your positive, but five million copies in a week? FIVE MILLION?! 5.000.000! 300.000.000 turnover :jig:


Bnet 2.0 should be up and running with SC2, so it's should be in tip-top form for D3. Should! We all know how the WoW launch turned out.

More on topic, the released date will be: Christmas 2010, the recession might be over by then, it will be the first Christmans after the recession = Tons of pure win.

 

[Chumpystyle]

Re: When will they announce the approximate release date?

Even though they have different dev teams working on the two games, there is going to be a fair amount of overlap (I would imagine) in people who will buy & play SCII & those who will buy & play D3.

Call me a cynic, but if I worked for Blizzard, I wouldn't call a D3 release until sales of SCII had started to slow down a little... Maybe 12-18 months or so after the SCII Launch...

At the end of the day, as much as we all enjoy their products, Blizzard, like most companies, exist to make money. Launching two massive titles in quick succession in my mind would only reduce the chance of selling a copy of both.

Feel free to disagree with me, but given that SCII is still a few months away, I would be surprised (even if D3 was ready) if Blizzard didn't hold off until at least Q4 2010 or later to launch.

Given that, my guess is that we'll have an approximate release date around Blizzcon in 2010 (Assuming they keep Blizzcon in August).

 

[yalthar]

Re: When will they announce the approximate release date?

I doubt that they will hold it back.
They'll want to release it as soon as it's done - I'm pretty sure the advantages of a faster ROI will outweigh any potential cannibalization.