StarCraft 2 Probably Won't "Be Home for Christmas"

Somewhat overshadowed by the Diablo III announcement, was the hoped-for StarCraft 2 release date announcement. You know, the one that didn't happen.

It had been rumored that since several retailers had posted release dates on their sites, we'd be getting a confirmation at the 2008 WorldWide Invitational (WWI). But while Blizzard Executive Vice President Rob Pardo did speak about the Evolving Design of StarCraft II, he seemingly quashed those hopes.

According to Internode Games Network, Pardo:

explained that they were "about a third of the way through" the campaign, and were concentrating on story structure and cinematics at this point - commenting that by the end of the year, Blizzard should have something very impressive to show off.

Now, one could hope that what he meant by "something very impressive" he might have meant the release of the game, but with them only 1/3 of the way through the campaign, that seems unlikely.

This also casts a pall over Diablo III, because if they won't be done with StarCraft II by Christmas (which would be about 1 1/2 years after announcing StarCraft II), when will they be done with Diablo III?