Earlier today, Yahoo Finance mentioned offhandedly that StarCraft II was being pushed back to 2010. Before the internet even had time to explode with shock, an email was sent out by Activision/Blizzard confirming the news: StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty (the first part of their plan to eat your wallet) will not be out in 2009.

In the email, Activision overlord Bobby Kotick said the following:

"As we prepare for next year, we have moved the expected release dates for two games, Activision Publishing's Singularity and Blizzard Entertainment's StarCraft(R) II, into 2010. However, we are increasing our calendar year earnings-per-share GAAP outlook and reaffirming our calendar year earnings-per-share non-GAAP outlook and still expect to deliver record non-GAAP operating margins. Although there is a great deal of economic uncertainty in the global marketplace, we remain focused on the opportunities afforded by our industry and will continue exploring potential new markets and business models that should enable us to continue expanding our operating margins," Kotick added.

The fact that he mentioned Singularity in the same breath is pretty funny, since there's little chance many will care about the shooter's delay next to the behemoth that is StarCraft. If you're at all, in any way, shocked at this announcement than you seriously need to think about your expectations. First, there's Blizzard's inability to hit a launch date (going back years and years and years), second, there's the fact that the developer recently said that they wanted the game to have a long beta (which meant, if nothing else, that the game was very far away), and third, it's 2010. Things are getting delayed. Deal with it.