Analyst believes Starcraft II could be delayed until 2010

Posted Jun 30th 2009 4:00PM by John Callaham
Filed under: Biz, MMO, RTS, Starcraft II, World of Warcraft

Blizzard has said that they are still targeting the release of their sci-fi RTS game StarCraft II for the end of 2009. However Gamasutra is reporting that one analyst believes there are signs that the game could be pushed back to 2010.

Janco Partners analyst Mike Hickey is basing those thoughts on a comment over at Kotaku where StarCraft II's lead designer Dustin Browder stated that the beta for the game will last "four to six months" Since the beta has yet to begin that time table will make a fall/holiday 2009 release for the full game very close indeed for publisher Activision Blizzard. Because of this, Hickey claims, "We find it increasingly probably that the game will be released in [Activision's] fiscal '10 period."

Hickey even sees weakness in Blizzard's huge MMO hit World of Warcraft, saying, "We view looming competition in the West from new MMORPGs as a greater threat to WoW's future."

Gallery: Starcraft 2

Tags: activision, activision-blizzard, blizzard, blizzard-entertainment, null, starcraft-2, starcraft-ii

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

"Hickey even sees weakness in Blizzard's huge MMO hit World of Warcraft, saying, "We view looming competition in the West from new MMORPGs as a greater threat to WoW's future.""

WoW will be around for years to come, its not going anywhere anytime soon. The subscription numbers will drop as people move on to other games and more are released, but WoW's dominance won't change for the forseeable future by another pay-to-play MMO.

As for SC2, i would have been surprised if Blizzard managed to release it on time, and not be pushed back.Posted at 10:01PM on Jun 30th 2009 by Kassandra

@1

Thanks for the heads up on WoW captain obvious!Posted at 10:17PM on Jun 30th 2009 by Aa