Battle.net likened to Xbox LIVE

Speaking during the Activision Blizzard Q2 earnings call, president and CEO Bobby Kotick and Michael Morhaime, president and CEO of Blizzard Entertainment, offered further insight into the delay of StarCraft II and its relation to Battle.net.

“To put Battle.net into context, it will be a service similar to Xbox LIVE and it will leverage the technologies, infrastructure, and expertise that Blizzard has developed over the last decade in multi-player play and social networking,” said Kotick.

Morhaime added: Our vision for Battle.net is ambitious. As I have said before, we intend to make Battle.net the premier online gaming destination. We view the next generation of Battle.net as strategically important to the future of our company. It’s the foundation for all future online games at Blizzard and will be the cornerstone of our community.

“In addition to supporting tournaments, rankings, and multi-player game matching for StarCraft II and future Blizzard games, the next generation of Battle.net will add social networking features, cross-game communication, unified login and account management, and more. Battle.net will bring together players from across all of our games including World of Warcraft, eventually allowing them to connect, communicate, and share experiences with each other through the service regardless of which Blizzard game.

“The new version of Battle.net is being integrated with StarCraft II more tightly than in any previous Blizzard game. Over the past few weeks, it has become clear that it will take longer than expected to prepare the new Battle.net for the launch of Starcraft II. This means, as Bobby mentioned, that we will not be ready to launch StarCraft II in 2009. We recognise that we only get one chance to make a first impression. It’s much easier to retain a player that has a great initial experience than to bring them back after a mediocre one.”

Via Seeking Alpha