Diablo 3 Won't Be Anywhere in Sight Until at Least Q2 2012
Blizzard will not release any new games in the first quarter of 2012.
The good news is that Activision's fourth quarter and calendar year 2011 earnings report shows that Blizzard's action-RPG PC game Diablo 3 is still set for a 2012 release despite recent reports of changes to the core systems. The bad news is that it's no longer set to hit store shelves this quarter, but sometime in 2Q12 at the earliest.
"The company's first quarter 2012 outlook does not incorporate a new release from Blizzard Entertainment, but its calendar year 2012 outlook anticipates two releases from Blizzard Entertainment," Actvision reports.
The report also states that, in March 2012, Activision Publishing expects to release the first Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 Content Collection, a compilation of content previously released to Call of Duty Elite premium members, on the Xbox 360. Also on the company's to-do list for 2012 is a new Call of Duty game, to grow Activision's Call of Duty Elite online service, and launch Skylanders Giants, a new title.
"Our extraordinary employees around the world are focused on making 2012 another great year for our audience and stakeholders," said Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick.
In addition to the Diablo 3 delay, Activision revealed that another 100,000 subscribers bailed out on World of Warcraft, leaving 10.2 million active subscribers still grinding through Blizzard's #1 subscription-based MMORPG. Could this drop have anything to do with the December 2011 launch of Star Wars: The Old Republic? It might. Activision Blizzard may even see a rise in numbers this quarter now that many defectors are coming out of their free month of TOR and heading back to Azeroth.
As previously stated, Blizzard looks to release two games this year. The second release will likely be StarCraft 2: Heart of the Swarm.

(If we're lucky)
(If we're lucky)
Continues to rant on the internet. Oh the irony.
1) It's not a big deal.
2) The gameplay would be worth the tradeoff even if it was an annoyance.
We live in a time where we are always connected. Blizz would rather risk irritating consumers than be pirated millions of times.
Might want to include Skyrim?!
Whatever changes they make now will only result in more changes later on. They are fine tuning this game too much; at this rate it's going to be "Duke Nukem'd" to pieces.
Apparently, you haven't known Blizzard for very long. The only game that got "Duke Nukem'd" in Blizzard's history was Starcraft:Ghost. Luckily, they scrapped it instead of tarnishing their reputation with a half-baked console game.
They should do the same with Diablo 3, this game is clearly a console / smartphone / Wii / ipad compatible project, not that there is anything "wrong" with that, but it is the clear reason why it's taking 12 years to produce a sequel, that should have been already out at least 7 years ago, so we can have Diablo 4 or 5 today.
It took them 12 years to release a sequel for Starcraft. I'm sure 12 years for D3 isn't going to change anything.
I fail to see how Diablo 3 is "clearly a console/smartphone/Wii/ipad" compatible project. They haven't even determined whether it is going to be a console/smartphone/Wii/ipad product. I would understand if you were upset at all the changes they've made, but to say that its clearly for another product when it does not appear to be is just hyperbolic.