Diablo III Kore

The release date for Diablo 3 is . . . SUMMER OF 2011

At BlizzCon 2009, CEO Mike Morhaime has confirmed that the just-revealed World of Warcraft expansion Cataclysm and StarCraft II are the two titles the company expects to hit in 2010.

 2nd Quarter 2010 - StarCraft II [UPDATED] JULY 27TH, 2010 - RELEASE DATE

 4th Quarter  2010 - WoW Cataclysm

             Quote from Rob Pardo 

"A lot of the way we develop is: We wanna make sure the game is really fun and the visual fidelity we want … we wanna make sure we have a small area that feels really done so we know what to build. So even though it looks really complete a lot of the content is just not there. We have a long ways to go to build each of the different acts in the game and put in all the quests and all the different monsters. We have a lot of development ahead of us before it will be something … It will definitely be out after StarCraft II.” 

G4 TV with Mike Morhaime

Gamers are still patiently waiting for Blizzard Entertainment to deliver the long-in-the-making StarCraft II for the PC and Mac, which was originally planned for a late 2009 release. Blizzard Entertainment president and co-founder Mike Morhaime reiterated on an Activision quarterly results call that StarCraft II is targeting a release within the "first half of 2010."

The company is still planning a StarCraft II beta test, but Morhaime didn't disclose any details on when the beta itself would launch. "[We are] driving hard towards [a] beta test," said Morhaime. "All of us are very excited to get started."

One game Morhaime barely discussed was Diablo III. The latest hack 'n slash sequel was not said to be part of Blizzard's 2010 pipeline, while StarCraft II and World of Warcraft: Cataclysm are. Morhaime mentioned Diablo III as part of Blizzard's "pipeline," but that's all he would say.

With Blizzard's prior history, they have set a trend to announce their games at least 2 years before the actual release date. Enough time to fully devote their team to work on the game, while milking the cash cows outta the current release (WoW) and old release (Diablo II). News of Diablo II topping the sales chart ripple through the webs after the announcement of Diablo III; It has brought back revenues from an old game that never died. The cookie crumbs of information that the team has released for Diablo III through BlizzCon '08 & '09 has had a tremendous effect on bringing back the D2's fan boys, like myself, and drawing in new attentions from gamers worldwide. 

World of Warcraft - Est. 12 Million Players

The World of Warcraft expansions are being release each year, so it seems, to accommodate the large amount of players that WoW has accumulated. So it is safe to say, that with Cataclysm being released with StarCraft II.

 2nd Quarter 2011 - Diablo III

 4th Quarter 2011 - WoW 4th Expansion 

The news of the 'Next Gen MMO' has no effect on the 2 of the 3 top titles, because it's years away from now before we will even remotely see any information being released. So it shouldn't push Diablo III into the early stages of 2012. As of this date [5.8.2010], we're on schedule for the next release, Cataclysm. 

The game titles Blizzard has release over the years starting with Diablo.