It's not officially 100% confirmed, but this physical display at a Minnesota Best Buy seems like pretty solid evidence. According to a series of photos sent into Joystiq by one of their readers, Best Buy is advertising a midnight launch of Diablo III on February 1st. This meshes with the leaked Blizzard roadmap, which had a Q4 2011 release of the game as a goal, and also makes sense considering the builds of the game I've seen at Blizzard HQ and at BlizzCon in the last few months.
Given that the Diablo games are some of my favorite, this news has left me extremely excited. February 1st will be the day my social life dies, assuming this is true. I've sent an email to Blizzard asking for an official statement, and I'm waiting for a response. Until then, consider this reasonably solid evidence!
Best Buy thinks Diablo 3 is coming out on February 1, 2012 [Joystiq]
Jonathan Ross is an Associate Editor in Los Angeles who is obsessed with capybaras. Like, seriously, obsessed. If he's not playing Team Fortress 2 or getting into arguments about why PC gaming is superior, he's either off having a fancy dinner with lots of expensive wine, or sitting on the Destructoid IRC complaining that's he's not off having a fancy dinner.
Likes: Chrono Trigger, Street Fighter, Steam, everything Blizzard and Valve have ever made, playing Angry Birds on the toilet.
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Contest:
10:50 PM on 01.07.2012 | 
Click click click click click click click click click click click click click click click click click click click click click click click click click click click click click click click click click click click click click click click click click click click click click click click click click click click click click click click click click click click click click click click click click click click click click click click click click click click click click click click click click click click click click click click click click click click click click click click click...
THAT'S MY BIRTHDAY
OH SHIT
UPDATE: Blizzard community manager Micah "Bashiok" Whipple calls the February 1 release date "speculation" by Best Buy, not an official date. "Retailers will not know a date until its officially announced through a press release," Bashiok writes on Twitter, adding "We can't really keep every individual retail shop from making up a date."
Go figure.
Probably the whole "torchlight 2 = moddable community organized and based around value for dollar" and d3 = "real money market, locked to online only, not moddable, probably going to nickle and dime with random accessories"
That's cool, I guess.
....
OH DEAR GOD THERE'S JIZZ EVERYWHERE!
(joke about cumming)
This better be true.
Trash!
come on :P
Are you FUCKING KIDDING ME ???!!!
But, thinking logically, its highly unlikely...
But, you never know...
Doing some simple pixel measurements, the word "Diablo" is angled differently than the other words on the poster. Unless Best Buy's printer is both horrible at spelling AND prints cock-eyed images, this is a shoop.
And honestly, who thinks Blizzard would have told retailers before an official announcement? No way, Jose.
But I'm still not holding my breath.
Seriously, Blizzard is still working on a lot of the core mechanics of the game (runestones and such, there's a lot of things they don't have set in stone yet if you follow the Blue posts on Blizzard forums) and to have the game go gold and be available on store shelves in a few weeks time is ridiculous.
I hope I'm wrong, but I don't have my expectations high.
*runs off in shame*
Good.... Goooood.
As to the veracity, I tend to believe it. Most people misspell Feb (not even gonna risk it), and you wouldn't believe the half-assednes and blatant errors that make it in to expensive print ads, catalogues, and magazine covers until you've read photoshop disasters all the way through.
(Everybody has seen PSDisasters by now right?)
http://www.psdisasters.com/ in case
Like others have said, Shitty drm, not moddable, and probably some form of pay to play or get items. Sounds totally fun and not like there will be a headache there at all.
I shouldn't be surprised, starcraft 2 was blase at best.
Game developers are getting really good at hyping the fuck out of me only to make some critically bad decisions close to the launch window *glares at battlefield 3*
Yeah, and they'll "probably" send you angry bees in the mail every month, too, because they don't know how to make games anymore.
Diablo 2 was a really big hit because it was so moddable, too.
Battle.net. isn't DRM. That doesn't mean Diablo III doesn't have DRM, though. Starcraft and Diablo II played online through Battle.net, and I did nothing BUT play those games locally.
Seriously, if you're defending an always-on connection, then something's wrong.
Knowing Blizzard's "when it's done" schedule, maybe February 1 will be an announcement that we will be getting the release date soon? :P
http://thecontrolleronline.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/diablo3bestbuy530px2.jpg