I’ll just quote the title of the item on Kotaku, since everyone else is. Kotaku writer Brian Crecente had a chance to speak briefly with Michael Morhaime and Rob Pardo at the Interactive Arts and Sciences Awards, and got in a question about D3’s release date. Here’s a quote; see the full piece for a bit more.

“Will I be christening my new computer with Diablo III this year?” “We really, really hope so. That’s our goal,” Pardo said. “Our goal is to get there. But you know, at the end of the day, we are going to get it right. That’s more important. “We’re going to promise, we’re going to get it out there when it’s awesome. And, we’re crossing our fingers, maybe it will be this year.”

It’s good to have goals. They motivate us to do things. Sadly, goals do not = achievements, or else Megan Fox and a bucket of whipped cream would fill frat house bathtubs like Santa fills chimneys. Still, it’s nice that someone at Blizzard will admit to actually attempting to meet a release date, after all of that carefully-parsed, substance-free legalese during this week’s conference call, and the resulting damage control.