Blizzard is officially in the Philippines

 

HAIL IT's ABOUT TIME

We're sendin' back some love to Blizzard Entertainment for choosing to have physical presence in the Philippines. No, we're not pulling your leg. The company behind blockbuster hits StarCraft, Warcraft, and Diablo, through IAHGames, is here and is not going anywhere.

In fact, Blizzard will be locating their Battle.net servers in Singapore, which shall serve the Philippines and the rest of the greater South East Asia region. This should mean lower latency for those who are connected to Blizzard's free online gaming service. Plus, we get access to fully localized customer service. How cool is that?

Yusof's cap says it all

Fadzly Yusof, managing director of IAHGames (aka Blizzard's point person in the country), also revealed that they're in talks with local gaming companies Level Up!, IPVG, and Mobius since March this year to help them organize café-level tourneys. We'll see which of the 3 they will partner with in the next few weeks.

Coming to your friendly neighborhood DataBlitz outlet

In time for StarCraft II's launch

Blizzard's move is just in time for the global launch of StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty. As we reported barely 2 months ago, the highly anticipated real-time strategy game will finally be available on July 27.

The standard-edition set is priced at P3,500 while the collector's edition goes for P6,500. And by collector's edition, Blizzard really means collector's edition, as only 50 sets have been allocated to the Philippines. So if you have reserved one at DataBlitz, Blizzard products' master reseller, and you haven't received any call from them yet, chances are you are not one of the lucky 50 anymore.

The hologram preorder card

That doesn't mean that you throw in the towel so easily, though. Giving up is for the weak. We suggest that you call your suking DataBlitz outlet. Who knows, those before you on the list might not collect theirs. Or the demand here is so high that Blizzard's HQ might actually allot extra collector's edition sets for us. You never know.

Exciting times ahead? You bet!

You may also want to know...

• that a set is already PC and Mac compatible. 
• that those who buy the game and have a Facebook account will be common friends on Battle.net.
• that the official StarCraft II Facebook page can be found here.
• that you can still play with your friends from the US, but don't expect the kind of connection that you get when you're connected to your region.
  
• that 80% of computers in Internet cafes in the Philippines can handle StarCraft II.
• that they might throw in freebies like Razer accessories for those who preorder the game. Stay tuned.