• Blizzard Entertainment
• StarCraft II

To the surprise of maybe one guy, Activision Blizzard's long-long-long-awaited StarCraft II has again been delayed, this time dumping its vague "later this year" release window for a slightly less vague, but not at all better "first half of 2010."

And what's to blame for the delay? Apparently online gaming service Battle.net. The company says that upgrades and changes to the service are going to take even longer than originally estimated and given that the whole thing is described as an "integral" part of StarCraft II, the game just can't be released without it.

Blizzard's annual Blizzcon convention is still scheduled to fill the Anaheim Convention Center this October, so presumably the company will have more info on the game at that time, but — as with last year — it will probably be overshadowed by the collective glee of people playing the latest build of Diablo III.