Well the countdown got to zero on the Blizzard Entertainment Website and like any good time bomb, the site seems to have exploded, and is no longer responding under the crush of visits. The announcement they were teasing is apparently plans for a game titled StarCraft Ghost that will bring some of their popular sci-fi RTS series to the console world in what's described as 3D tactical-action game. Likewise crushed under the burden of reporting on this, Cube.IGN.Com and PS2.IGN.Com (thanks Chris Johnson) have stories up about the announcement for their respective platforms, as does Xbox.IGN.Com (thanks Ray Marden). This is what the Blizzard website is reporting, if you can manage to get through:

Today at the Tokyo Game Show Blizzard Entertainment announced its newest product under development, StarCraft: Ghost. In this 3D tactical-action console game set in the legendary StarCraft universe, players will take the role of Nova, a lethal Ghost operative trained in the arts of espionage and tactical combat.

As a Terran Ghost, Nova will employ an amazing array of physical and psionic abilities. Nova will also have access to a host of hi-tech weapons and vehicles, some of which will be familiar to players of StarCraft and Brood War.

Check out the official announcement in our latest press release. You can also see more of Nova, her adversaries, and some of the interactive 3D environments that she'll be infiltrating at our new StarCraft: Ghost Web site.

Update: Blizzard has subsequently sent along the oddly asterisk-filled official press release announcing the game ("Co-developed by Blizzard Entertainment and Nihilistic Software"), and there are new screenshots on War3.com and some more shots and pieces of concept art from the game on GameSpyDaily.