Activision Blizzard execs listed a bunch of new games for 2010 during a conference call today but declined to be anything other than cagey on the topic of Diablo III.
The company's CEO, Mike Griffith said that, in addition to the delayed Singularity, now expected between January and the end of March, the company will publish new games in the James Bond, Tony Hawk and Spider-Man franchises. Griffith also promised tie-ins to Dreamworks movies Shrek 4 and How To Train Your Dragon. More mysterious was his reference to an unnamed "innovative property in the $4 billion action genre."
Later in the call, a financial analyst tried to get top Blizzard exec, Mike Morhaime, to clarify whether the delay of StarCraft II to 2010 would push back an anticipated 2010 release for the studio's Diablo III. The analyst recalled an earlier comment by a Blizzard representative that the studio would release a single major game per year.
"The move of StarCraft into next year does not impact the schedule," Morhaime said. "And so it would be correct to conclude that you could expect two releases of Blizzard for next year. But I would not make any conclusions on what those titles would be."
Activision also announced plans to offer "new releases" in the Call of Duty series next year, though how those releases will mix downloadable map packs for existing games and brand-new games was not specified.