Diablo III Coming Early February…or Not

Well this is interesting.

A Best Buy store in Minnesota has posted the in-store advertising to the left, complete with a countdown clock to February 1. After making the twitter and blag-o-blag rounds, it was confirmed that the display in question was made in house, thus “Feburary.”

The Best Buy website does list February 1 as the release date though, and UK retailer Gameplay lists February 3. Blizzard’s last known official word on the matter is “early 2012″, so the February dates aren’t entirely out of line.

The leak/early announcement/wild guess from retailers didn’t go unnoticed by Blizzard though. Community Manager Micah Whipple said on twitter “Diablo III does not have a release date. Any store or person claiming otherwise is guessing.”

But multiple retailers don’t come to the same conclusion without at least a hint from the publisher. It wouldn’t surprise me if there isn’t a concrete street date yet, but I’m sure retailers got some clue if the ones willing to put a date on the game are within a couple days of each other.

And since the game was playable all the way back in 2009, I can’t feel too bad about a Community Manager being butt-hurt over a store trying to give customers some kind of idea about when a product will hit shelves.

Via Joystiq