Activision: Diablo III planned for second quarter of 2012, more Blizzard delays in the cards

Activision Blizzard's released its financial results for the end of 2011, and you'll forgive us if we give you the Cliff's Notes version – Activision rich, Kotick ebullient, Call of Duty more than somewhat profitable – in order to skip to some of the company's projected future releases (via GameSpot). Specifically, the company's made a few admissions regarding its expectations for the output of prize subsidiary Blizzard, which won't be shipping Diablo III for a while yet

While players have been waiting a good, long time for Diablo III, Blizzard's known for releasing games when they're ready, not when you want them – so you might want Diablo III in “Early 2012” as you'd been led to expect, but it'll now be ready sometime between April and June, so that's when you'll get it (hopefully)

The company recently announced a substantial overhaul to play mechanics, followed by the departure of the title's senior producer. In turn, Blizzard announced it wouldn't be letting anyone see sunlight until the game got done, canceling the year's BlizzCon lest it tempt programmers away from their monitors for a few days.

Activision's also announced that it no longer expects to ship both Starcraft II: Heart of the Swarm and World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria this year, spacing the titles out so Blizzard has time to make them as shiny and panda-filled as possible. Guess you'll just have to hope this whole Apocalypse 2012 thing doesn't pan out after all, huh?