The puzzle is starting to come into shape. While listening to podcasts and gathering my own information, I believe I’ve narrowed down whats going on with releases. I am probably totally wrong, but lets just take a look at the evidence.
Blizzard said they wanted an expansion a year. They made this announcement a little before BC launched. They’ve obviously not followed this model though. Then they merge with Activision and it is stated that the new Activision-Blizzard wants to release one Blizzard title a year. Keyword being title, not expansion.
They’re are also unconfirmed rumors of patch 3.2 launching in October with 3.3 coming out in February or March of next year. Someone posted this on the official forums and it was met with a blue post reply stating the dates were a little far off. What does this mean?
Arena Season Six just wrapped up (I believe, I don’t mess with arenas at all). Normally there are one to two months of time between seasons. Arena Season Seven starts with patch 3.2. So does this mean 3.2 launches in a couple of months instead of October? If so, its clear Blizzard has stepped up the content production time (lets just hope its not super buggy like 3.1…).
Taking all of this into consideration. Here is a very possible scenario.
- July-August 2009 – Patch 3.2 launches
- December 2009/January 2010 – Patch 3.3
- Q4 2009 – Starcraft 2 launches (taking 2009′s “new blizzard title”)
- Q2 2010 – WoW expansion (likely to be announced at Blizzcon)
- 2011 – Diablo 3 launches (or maybe Starcraft 2 expansion)
- 2012 – Either WoW expansion or the next-gen MMO
Its far out and who really knows as things can change. We do know that they’ve been working on the next-gen MMO for at least a year. If they follow the typical four to five year time table that an MMO takes, that would put its release somewhere around the 2012 timeframe. No matter what, it doesn’t look like Blizzard is going to ever meet the ‘one expansion per year’ model they want. I have no idea why a company like Turbine can do it and Blizzard can’t though. Knowing Blizzard’s past track record, I would say 3.2 coming out in July or August is wishful thinking…
