There was apparently a high level meeting planned to finalise the release strategy last week and in a Tweet from Blizzard Community Manager Zarhym earlier today it looks like another meeting may well have taken place as a follow-up to get things finalised

This meeting’s high-level shit, yo. Gettin’ all professional up in this bitch.”

While the Tweet is not specific, we can speculate that decisions are now being made to get a release nailed down and announced. What with all the tentative retailer dates and booking of warehouse space popping up and the print run of documentation, it would make perfect sense. Jay Wilson’s Tweet last week also lends a little weight to the theory.

“Asia is not what’s holding us back. You’ll see soon enough.”

We are still waiting for final details of some of the game mechanics and Blizzard has already stated many times that they won’t release new info to the community until it is finalised. Jay’s Tweet also hints at more info on the game being released which would mean these could be the final reveal before a release date and the game ships out.

I would go out on a limb to say we will be hearing something from Blizzard very shortly. Thanks to Azzure for picking up some of this also.

I’m of course still cautious, a tiny (pessimistic) part of me is expecting a slippage announcement, but as the saying goes there’s no smoke without fire and it’s been getting darn smokey around here lately. Just waiting for Mike to make one of his announcements or one of the foreign official sites to slip up. Yay for administrative miscommunication.

Update #1: When asked if the meeting was Diablo 3 related, Zarhym replied…

It is!

Looking promising guys!

Update #2: It has been confirmed to us by a Blizzard source that the meeting was regarding the Diablo 3 release date. Unfortunately they wouldn’t divulge what the outcome was and as I’d left my bestest thumbscrews in my other handbag wasn’t able to convince them otherwise.