Blizzard fans got excited when Blizzard president Mike Morhaime stated last May, ""This summer we will be opening up external beta testing," for StarCraft II. With the recent delay of the release of the sci-fi RTS game from fall 2009 to sometime in 2010, we wondered if StarCraft II would still make a summer beta multiplayer launch.

Alas, that is not to be the case. In a brief chat with Big Download at BlizzCon, StarCraft II design director Dustin Browder told us, "We won't make summer" for the beta. He told us that there were a number of reasons for the beta delay including finishing up the single player campaign, getting Battle.net up and running and more.

However Morhaime, chatting on the DirecTV pay-per-view telecast of BlizzCon, stated, "I'm confident the beta will start this year" He would not be more specific on a date.