Wedbush Morgan’s Michael Pachter praises Blizzard on the ”phenomenal job” they did with World of Warcraft’s beta period, says StarCraft II likely ”polished” already.
It’s ”highly likely” there’s few bugs or issues, it’s just now down to fine tuning balance through ”a large scale beta”. Modern Warfare 2 sales will offset a possibly delayed StarCraft II.
At wholesale of $40 when it launches, with $50 at retail would net Activision-Blizzard $160 million in revenues its first quarter if it clears 4 million copies. Profit could reach $80 million.
”Nobody (truly nobody) knows how long the StarCraft II beta will take. It’s highly likely that the game is polished, with few or no bugs,” Pachter told Gamasutra.
”The issue is balance, and until there is a large scale beta, Blizzard won’t be able to test every single weapon, defense, et cetera, in order to ensure that the three races are perfectly balanced.”
”They did a phenomenal job with the World of Warcraft beta (as I recall, it was around four months), and they will have no issues at all in attracting 30,000 supremely knowledgeable beta testers, so my bias is that the beta will take less time than most expect.”
”…The Blizzard guys are perfectionists, and if they want to take six months, nobody at Activision is going to challenge them,” added Pachter.
”So the bottom line is that StarCraft II will launch when Blizzard says so.” You’ve been told!
See the clip below for some StarCraft II multiplayer action, with battle commentary.
