Activision-Blizzard
held their second quarter conference call yesterday, and in addition to addressing
the Starcraft II delay, both Mike Morhaime and Activision CEO Bobby Kotick
shared some insight into what the revamped Battle.net will be like. The brand new system (which is
currently up and working, albeit in a very skeleton form so far) will have "social networking features, cross-game communication, [and] unified account management," in addition to features that will let players "share experiences" with each other online (we'd presume that means things like screenshot galleries and leaderboards, but who knows?). Kotick also spoke up, and compared the service to that other popular online community, Xbox Live.
Blizzard is still saying the new Battle.net will
come in conjunction with the new Starcraft, so we'll have to keep an eye out for them both in the first half of 2010. It'll be interesting to see what other features Blizzard adds in, and exactly what form features like "cross-game communication" take -- do they mean actual in-game messaging across games, or just status updates and messages on a social network? Kotick's comparison to Xbox Live raises some questions, too, as that's a much wider service than you'd think Battle.net would be. But then again, the guy's a CEO, and all CEOs have a tendency to
overestimate exactly what their company is doing. Like most of Blizzard's upcoming releases, we'll have to wait and see on Battle.net.
Tags: 2010, activision, activision-blizzard, battle-net, blizzard, bobby-kotick, conference-call, cross-game-communication, earnings, financials, mike-morhaime, release, second-quarter, starcraft-ii, starcraft-ii-wings-of-liberty, xbox-live
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Rezlak Aug 6th 2009 7:07PM
I like pizza.
Furlover Aug 6th 2009 7:21PM
Let's hope they reconsider their ridiculous plan not to include LAN play in the meantime then...
Skittles Aug 6th 2009 9:15PM
Ok so maybe the CEO is overestimating things, but lets think about it this way, even though Blizzard does take a long time to come out with things, when it finally does come out it tends to be very high quality. So im expecting that even though he may be overestimating that it will still be around or above the quality of Xbox Live.
Mr. Tastix Aug 6th 2009 10:09PM
I'd rather wait a year or two and have the game come out in top quality then have it released two years early and find out it's quality is shit. I've waited seven years for a game before (or more specifically, a mod for a game), it's not like we, the consumer, lose out on waiting.
Azbulldog Aug 6th 2009 7:43PM
Too bad it wont work with Steam as well.
Goobenix Aug 6th 2009 8:04PM
Maybe we'll be able to have guild forums on battle.net and it was somehow integrated with WoW. It would be neat if you could access the forums or find out when you have mail waiting from within the game.
Mr. Tastix Aug 6th 2009 10:07PM
You can access the forums (and the internet in general) via in-game browsers. These are basically inlay's so they're not considered "bots". Xfire has one built into it, as does Steam, alternatively you can use GotGame's "Rogue" browser but that's always been a buggy son of a bitch for me.
kendall.will Aug 6th 2009 8:14PM
I expect that "cross-game communication" means "a new avenue for gold farmer adverts".
devilsei Aug 6th 2009 8:16PM
"Kotick also spoke up, and compared the service to that other popular online community, Xbox Live."
That's how they are going to monetize it. Make it just like XBox live.
Every feature that is being "added" to this so-called new Battle.Net is only for those who pay for them. Will it be a monthly fee? Most likely. Will it cost at least $5, it better be. Will the Activision-half push for a full $15? You bet they will.
Dreadskull Aug 6th 2009 8:31PM
So... why does the CEO of Activision even bother talking when it's the president of Blizzard who knows exactly what his company's working on...
*sigh*
Makes me wonder if Activision really does try to tell Blizzard what to do here and there.
teknomuffin Aug 6th 2009 10:34PM
I blame Activi$ion as well, for everything that's been happening... And I mean, faction change, sex change, etc., anything that costs money...
Superthrust Aug 7th 2009 4:18AM
I agree with tecknomuffin here....120%. This has been in a complete downfall since acticrap took over...
Even this new patch...horrible instance that seems lacking and FILLED TO THE RIM with bugs....come on, not even proper testing happened...activision is pushing koticks life ideal...to push games release's and make a profit ONLY on games that can be exploited annually for a sequel / expanded upon for a cost.
Thanks...now we're screwed into a chain requiring more money....
ChasW Aug 6th 2009 8:50PM
"cross-game communication" could very well be used in the way a programmer or sysadmin would think about it instead of how a player would think about it. In other words, it could very well mean that Starcraft II can talk to WoW can talk to Diablo II instead of the players talking to each other. So, getting an item in Diablo II could unlock a companion in WoW or something along those lines.
Vladeon Aug 7th 2009 12:25AM
If votes counted in business, I would vote for this interpretation. How awesome would it be to kill Arthas and unlock Frostmourne for your diablo character? I am a huge fan (more so than of WoW and I'm writing a comment on a WoW blog using my iPod) of both Starcraft and diablo and will most likely pick both of them up and would love to see a little bit of cross-title goodies. A zergling pet in WoW would be awesome(I know there already was one but it's ultra rare). So, in conclusion, this possibility is awesome.
RogueJedi86 Aug 6th 2009 10:19PM
The predicted features just make Battle.net sound like XFire, but with only Blizzard games.
Ravdoss Aug 7th 2009 12:24AM
Well now we know... Blizzard's new top secret mmo is really Battle.net!
all your base belong to us
dkslatten Aug 7th 2009 11:46AM
battle.net can go to hell...
mandetory conversion/merging
another monthly fee
abnormal amount of bugs
extremely delayed public notifications of errors/bugs
early release which will cause numerous problems
this will be less than impressive
gton Aug 7th 2009 12:57PM
imo Karazhan was the pinnacle of wow, nothing came close to that
the revamp of naxxramas being the biggest screwup in entire wow history
Charlie Aug 7th 2009 4:13PM
I think saying b.net will be like xbox live was a mistake, since xbox live costs money. B.net will be free, costs covered by WoW and B.net advertising.
Also, I trust blizzard. They haven't released a bad game in their modern era (Warcraft I and everything after). They will get this right. I look forward to it.