With its beta starting last week, Blizzard revealed that StarCraft II is still targeting a release in the first half of 2010. The latest word comes from yesterday's BlizzCast in which lead producer Chris Sigaty dropped some information on the beta as well as the release plans for the game.

"We were targeting three to five months for the beta. We're really at a three-month period of time for the beta at this point. We are still targeting the first half of this year...[for release.]"

The beta received its first full patch yesterday, addressing numerous bugs as well as making a slew of balance changes. I can tell you firsthand that it's pretty damn awesome, so it's good to see that Blizzard is still on track for its original release schedule.

[via ShackNews]

Blizzard's senior VP Frank Pearce expressed his hope that their online service Battle.net will become gaming's Facebook. When asked where he thought Battle.net was heading in the next two years, Pearce answered, "For me, I think about the web 2.0 experience and all the people that are connecting with each other around the world on sites like Facebook, and I would like Blizzard's Battle.net to be the equivalent in the gaming space.

"But that's pretty ambitious," he told G4TV. "I would be very, very satisfied if Battle.net was that just for Blizzard games and the Blizzard community. The Blizzard community is really what's most important to us, anyway."

[via CVG]

As you might already know by now, the closed beta for StarCraft II went live today. Blizzard said "thousands" of people would be included in the first wave, and people are still being selected over the next couple days.

Blizzard confirmed that beta "keys" aren't going out, rather access is tied to your Battle.net account, so login at www.battle.net to see if you can download the SCII installer. If you can, you're good to go. If not, be patient as you might still get added later today or tomorrow.

Currently, the beta is PC only, no Macs. Blizzard hasn't decided if it will open it to Macs, although the game is releasing for Mac alongside the PC.

In its conference call with investors, Activision Blizzard announced that the beta for StarCraft II will be releasing "later this month." It will be a closed worldwide beta. The game is planned for a mid-2010 release.

We also learned earlier the full game will be downloadable through the overhauled Battle.net.

In its conference call with investors today, Activision Blizzard's Bobby Kotick revealed that the much-anticipated StarCraft II will be downloadable through Blizzard's updated Battle.net service (which they previewed yesterday).

The new Battle.net will apparently be the foundation of all of Blizzard's new games from here on out, notable StarCraft II and Diablo III.

Unfortunately, there hasn't been any word on the beta yet, but we'll keep you posted.

The StarCraft II beta is edging closer and closer. With its release imminent, Blizzard has given us a look at the changes coming to its online service, Battle.net.

"Battle.net is about to undergo the greatest update in its long and storied history as one of the world's most successful online gaming services," writes Blizzard.

The overhauled service will feature competitive ladders, server-hosted games, online-stored characters, automated matchmaking, cross-game chat, a user-mod marketplace, and a slew of other things. Most noticeably, its new look is pretty damn sleek.

The preview over at Blizzard features a bunch of new screenshots as well as an interview with Battle.net project director Greg Canessa, so head over there for the full scoop.

It's been way too long since we last received some new Diablo III assets, but today's our lucky day. A fresh, and rather substantial, batch of screens went out from Blizzard's finest, and, as usual, it looks brilliant.

There's plenty of hell to be had in Diablo III, but you'll have to wait. It's not out for a long time, not even before 2011. At least we've got Torchlight to hold us over, and it won't be too long before we're frying our brains with StarCraft II. Just be patient, young one.

[View with PicLens]

Diablo III

We posted earlier today that Blizzard had revealed the system specs for the StarCraft II beta. Blizzard has clarified that these are actually not the correct requirements, saying they are placeholders that should not have gone up. In fact, they are actually the specs for World of Warcraft.

"The page where this information was found was a placeholder that should not have gone up," the studio said. "We will have more information about the system requirements once the beta starts."

Earlier this week, a screen grab showed Blizzard celebrating the completion of the StarCraft II beta. Today, they have revealed the system requirements for the upcoming beta. The specs are surprisingly low.

Minimum Requirements:

• Operating System - Windows XP/XP64 (Service Pack 3), Windows Vista/Vista64 (Service Pack 1), Windows 7 Home Premium
• Processor - Intel Pentium IV 1.3GHz, AMD XP 1500+
• Memory - (Windows XP) 512mb, (Windows Vista) 1024mb, (Windows 7) 1024mb
• Graphics - 3D graphics processor with Hardware Transform and Lighting with 32 MB VRAM
• such as an ATI Radeon 7200 or NVIDIA GeForce 2 class card or better
• Hard Drive - 15Gb of free space
• DirectX9.0c

Recommended Requirements:

• Processor - Intel Pentium D, AMD 64 X2
• Memory - (Windows XP) 1024mb, (Windows Vista) 2048mb, (Windows 7) 2048mb
• Graphics - 3D graphics processor with Vertex and Pixel Shader capability with 128 MB VRAM
• such as an ATI Radeon X1600 or NVIDIA GeForce 7600 GT class card or better

[via Inc Gamers]

A preview of the upcoming third season of the Jace Hall shows what appears to be Blizzard celebrating the StarCraft II beta. A user by the name of Joneagle at StarCraft2Forums.org
spotted it. The visit is supposedly "recent," and considering Blizzard takes most of December off, it's likely it took place in January. I think the beta is nigh upon us. Take a look at the incriminating screen after the break.

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