Release date pushed to 2nd quarter of 2012...?

Small warning: this wasn't confirmed by Blizzard and it's still a rumor. Sadly, it's more than just a pure guess or random estimation. As you can read on Diablo IncGamersa (source), Amazon.de sent a mail to every customer who preordered Diablo 3 on their site, informing that...

"[...] we have updated information from the developer, saying they won’t make this new projection either. Diablo III is now scheduled to release within the 2nd quarter of 2012"

I was already a bit skeptical about a Jan-Mar release. The "closed beta" did not really shine: instead, it showed tons of flaws, bugs and missing stuff. The Real Money Auction House is still under development, we don't have a clue about auction fees, the rune system was changed more than one time already... I mean, where is the supposed "stress test" of a "nearly finished product" that Blizzard wanted to give us?

Someone could argue that "only Blizzard knows when the game will be released". I'd answer "yes and no": sometimes even the most secret information slips out of your hands and becomes public. You just need a random angry employer at Blizzard to get THAT info, after all. Let me also add that I really see no logical reason to send a random email to your customers informing that "sadly... your preorder is not going to be shipped as intended, instead you will need to wait even longer". I am sure lots of (potential) gamers would just cancel the preorder, so that's a very dangerous action if you don't have some kind of "decent" source to confirm the delay. And I guess Amazon... could have that source.

There is another interesting fact that -in my opinion- is not helping at all: blizzard is working on the console version of Diablo 3. They always showed some kind of "interest" in the past, but they now admitted they're focusing on the porting project already. If history can teach us anything, we can say that's not a good thing. Generally speaking, I am totally against pc/console porting. I'm a console and pc owner, so that's not a matter of preferences: it's just that "porting" stuff usually does not end very well for pc's.

Well, that's all folks. I won't deny I am a bit tired of this annoying "let's keep the hype up in every possible way". If Blizzard really decides to push the game to 2nd quarter, confirming this early prediction, I guess I'll quit blogging about the game and focus on something else. Let's see what happens.