Diablo 3 beta slated for Q3 2011, release in Q4

Credit: philomglol on Flickr

Several sources are reporting that Blizzard CEO Mike Morhaim announced on Blizzard-Activision’s quarterly financial conference call that the external beta for Diablo 3 will open in Q3 of this year. That’s calendar quarter, not fiscal quarter, by the way, meaning that the external beta could begin as early as July 1 (but as late as September 30). Internal “friends and family” beta testing has also reportedly already begun. Morhaim also announced that they’re targeting the launch for Q4 of this year (between October 1 and December 31), but Blizzard is currently not making any promises about that.

If you’ve been looking forward to this as much as I have, now is a very good time to log in to your Battle.net account and double check your beta test opt-in settings and update them if necessary.