This has been rumored around the net for some time, but at that point Blizzard continued to back their Q4-2009 release window expectations. Today, Blizzard announced that Starcraft II has been delayed to 2010. However, don’t think that the game is not ready and on track. That’s not the case. The game was on track to be released on Q4-2009. What is truly delaying the shipment of the game is Battle.net 2.0 which is not ready yet.
Blizzard continues to polish the Battle.net 2.0 platform which Bob Kotick described as the Xbox Live of Blizzard Entertainment which will integrate the community of each game into a single platform from where all future games will be plugged into. Read more over at Gamasutra.
The company’s vision for Battle.net is a “true online destination platform,” and Kotick expects it to “become the foundation for connecting tens of millions [of players] in the Blizzard community in a social gaming network across all Blizzard’s future games.”
“This will begin with World of Warcraft and StarCraft II,” Kotick added, calling the planned service, built by the Blizzard team, “similar to Xbox Live.” It’s primarily Battle.net, not StarCraft II—subtitled “Wings of Liberty” that needs this additional prep time, according to Activision.
 Blizzard Quote: |
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| Today we announced that StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty will not be ready for release by the end of 2009. 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. The upgraded Battle.net is an integral part of the StarCraft II experience and will be an essential part of all of our games moving forward. This extra development time will be critical to help us realize our vision for the service.
Our mission is to develop games that deliver an epic entertainment experience. As part of that commitment, we will always take as much time as needed to ensure that our games and services meet the expectations of our players and the standard for quality that we set for ourselves as developers. As we work to make Battle.net the premier online gaming destination, we  1 Comment
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^would have been a good blizzcon announcement, since blizzard is on a rampage w/ announcements at their events
now they only have d3 classes, new wow exp, new mmo to announce
their choices are dwindling !