Blizzard announced today that the forthcoming Wrath of the Lich King expansion will be published by The9 in mainland China, and Soft-World in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau. The9 and Soft-World have brought both the original WoW and Burning Crusade to their respective regions, so it's not surprising that they'll be handling Wrath as well. Release dates, of course, are still TBA, there as here.However, if there's one thing I like to do, it's speculating based on insufficient data. The agreement with Soft-World to carry BC appears to have been made just a month before BC's January 2007 launch in North America and Europe. So if Wrath follows this pattern, it will be out next month. On the other hand, the agreement with The9 to carry BC in mainland China was made in February 2007, a month after BC came out here, so if this holds true for Wrath as well, we should have been hitting Northrend a month ago. Either one of these is pretty unlikely; maybe there's not much information to be gleaned from this announcement after all (aside from that WoW is still doing well in Asia).
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
4-14-2008 @ 7:38PM
Erika said...
Can there be a contest for the Wrath release?
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4-14-2008 @ 7:39PM
TotalBiscuit said...
Not a chance it'll be out in a month, it's only just entered closed alpha.
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4-14-2008 @ 7:50PM
Gogey said...
allegedly entered alpha, by the way. Still dont know who this source is, but its a developing game, its always under in-house testing. Nothing new there.
No beta either, and blizz hasnt exactly been private with those. No, its not an indication. Even if it were to come out, theres no pre-ordering available either. I doubt blizzard would make a mistake as stupid as that one. Stop filling the site with useless posts.
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4-14-2008 @ 7:57PM
cowbellallen said...
It only entered alpha, and also they say Season 4 of arena won't be for awhile. I think it is safe to say WotLK will not be out until after summer.
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4-14-2008 @ 9:34PM
Super Guest Man 9000 said...
*WOOSH*
That was the sound of the humor in this post going completely over your head.
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4-14-2008 @ 11:13PM
Badger said...
"However, if there's one thing I like to do, it's speculating based on insufficient data."
Ahahaha, *delightful* self-aggrandizing humor!
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4-15-2008 @ 12:16AM
Coriel said...
If I remember correctly, China had to wait a long time before TBC was released. Blizzard might be locking up the distribution early this time to prevent something like that from happening again.
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4-15-2008 @ 12:47AM
imxiaozhu said...
If blizzard announced Wrath being distributed in China now, it means contract has been settled with the9, and not much delay would happen this time. For the TBC case, we had stuck at ver1.9 until September, which was 8 months after TBC's release time in other regions. The9 apparently learned a lesson from this, because WOW is still its sole source of profits.
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4-15-2008 @ 7:13AM
Zarzuur said...
NEXT MONTH?!!
.. however I don't think this will be the case, I think it is just because Blizz are able to organise themselves earlier this time around from their experience on TBC.
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4-15-2008 @ 8:00AM
Fendral said...
If the deal was made in January or February and the game came out in September, that would be 7 or 8 month in between.
If they aim for a release at the same time that would mean November or December.
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4-15-2008 @ 11:53PM
jason said...
pre order ?
http://www.gamestop.com/Catalog/ProductDetails.aspx?Product_ID=66710
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