The Great Diablo III February Launch Panic

Is Diablo III going to launch on February first?

And, more importantly, can the Blizzard marketing team spell “February?”

Joystiq reported earlier that somebody had snapped a picture in a Best Buy in Canada that showed a Diablo III launch date of February 1st, along with the usual “midnight opening” that would go along with such a big release.

Picture courtesy of Joystiq

Given that Blizzard had not yet announced a date, had not started on their usual pre-launch marketing blitz, and was, in fact, in the process of giving out keys to the beta, a February date seemed… unlikely.

And, unsurprisingly, as the story was investigated, it appeared that Best Buy had been using the “making crap up” method of release date research.  The misspelled signage was apparently a internal Best Buy effort and not something from Blizzard.

A brief moment of hope, that we might see an early Diablo III release, as unlikely as it seemed, was crushed with a “LOL” from the Blizzard community manager.

We return to the waiting game.