Last month, we heard Mike Morhaime from Blizzard state that the first instalment of StarCraft II would be on shelves by the end of the year.

Today however, it seems that there's some debate about whether or not that will happen, with the news that parent company Activision Blizzard are looking to push a couple of big-name games over the calendar into 2010.

Those games? Raven's new shooter Singularity, and (you guessed it), StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty.


Singularity
You'd expect that by removing two potentially best-selling games from the 2009 holiday season, Activision would be shooting themselves in the foot - but according to analysts, the cumulative effect may actually be a positive for the company.

To explain further - Singularity was due for release in September, and has a pretty simple reason for the delay - a little game known as Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, also due for the same release window. Activision don't want the average gamer to have to choose between two great games, when they can just release one a little bit later and hope that they'll fork out for both! Those looking for a shooter fix can also find it within already-released Prototype, which is selling better than expected.


StarCraft II
On the other hand, financial analyst Arvind Bhatia has commented to the Wall Street Journal (subscription-only link, sorry) that even though StarCraft II was originally slated for an October release, the delay in starting the game's beta test has made it seem pretty likely that fanboys are going to have to wait another few months to get their fix.

At this stage, there has been no official comment from either Activision or Blizzard on the potential delay, but this isn't the first sign that suggests something is happening (or not-happening, as the case may be), so we're starting to think there's a ring of truth to it.