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BioWare's sci-fi MMORPG should launch between July and December, says EA Games president; EA CFO says there's an "outside" chance for further delay.
Today, EA Games president Frank Gibeau teased the debut of Star Wars: The Old Republic. The executive called the sci-fi massively multiplayer online role-playing game's launch the "biggest event of the year," and EA's earnings report said the game is "scheduled to launch in the second half of calendar 2011."
While Gibeau seemed confident, some of his fellow executives were less so. "Although we fully anticipate launching Star Wars: The Old Republic [between July and December], the low end of our guidance range assumes the outside possibility of a January [quarter] launch," said CFO Eric Brown. (Emphasis added.) Out of caution, EA's fiscal year 2012 release calendar doesn't list the game at all.
In his comments, Gibeau wouldn't reveal the MMORPG's exact launch date. He said the reason for that was twofold. First, EA doesn't want to "tip off the competition," a thinly veiled reference to Blizzard Entertainment, which develop and publishes World of Warcraft. Second, he said that developer BioWare Austin wanted more data from the game's beta, which EA expects will have 1 million participants, since 1.5 million people have already signed up. EA has said once released, The Old Republic only needs 500,000 subscribers to turn a profit, although analysts are predicting it should have at least 1 million subscribers out of the gate.
Article Source
http://uk.gamespot.com/news/6312221.html?om_act=convert&om_clk=newstop&tag=newstop%3Btitle%3B3
Cant blame them for giving themselfs a buffer but 8 months? and that could change for the worst yet still over this period I think 2012 is more relalistic , at best a Christmas release, one thing is fairly for sure, they havent decided themselfs yet.
Comments
Sounds like their covering their backs for when it releases next year :P
The 8month window thing I'd guess is just for naive potential preorder buyers really...it's a shame but there you go.
P.S. Oh and thanks for the post btw
Oh dear, another thread on this ...
My brand new bloggity blog.
And they'll continue until EA decides to release an official launch date.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
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Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
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"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
I'm so looking forward to this game , but at this rate I'll have probably lost interest by the time it comes out .
As I expected, nice to see confirmation though. It also shows how much more power Bioware has than other developers that have joined up with EA.
There's 2 info bits that I found equally interesting from that conference:
We're holding the date for two reasons:
1. Don't want to tip off the competition.
2. To get more information from testing.
We give it a ship date range of fiscal Q2 to fiscal Q3 for Star Wars, and so Star Wars shipping earlier, ie Q2 vs. Q3 is factored into the 90 cent upper range
I don't know if that was exactly what it meant, but I read it like chances that it'll be released in the period July-September are most likely (probably September), unless from testing and feedback some more time is neede, and they don't want to reveal any more specific date in light of the competition.
The ACTUAL size of MMORPG worlds: a comparison list between MMO's
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums:
Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
ive heard that scheduled word before
I want to own property too
NEWS FLASH!
Star Wars: The Old Republic is scheduled to release at some point in the future.
Always read the small print.
Nice to see a release date dictated by the developers instead of the bloody marketing department for once; maybe this game will actually be finished when it ships.
What a hilarious statement.
" It may release as soon as three months from now, or six months from now or maybe 8 months from now--and there is a possiblity that it could be 10-11 months from now!" Any questions?
Does it really take that long to perfect space combat where you have two buttons to fire, can move left and right and a super cool feature which allows you to barrel roll <awesome!> your ship?!
Anyone that doesnt have a major touch of FEAR over this title is kidding themselves. So many scary warning signs. I will try and remain hopeful-boy would i love a good star wars title!
Yes I can see that
not.
My brand new bloggity blog.
um you do know there is a whole lot more then just the space combat right to fix up? Like i don't know...the rest of the game :P
Help me Bioware, you're my only hope.
Is ToR going to be good? Dude it's Bioware making a freaking star wars game, all signs point to awesome. -G4tv MMo report.
Of course i know that. I just find the space combat decision to be one of the worst MMO developer decisions ive seen in a long time. You build a star wars game and space combat is a single player mini-game? So so so much better to leave it out then to patch a three legged beast like that on to the side. Be like making light sabers ornamental at release. It (space combat) is kind of a big deal-just dont get why in a million sundays they'd implement it as they are planning to.
And I do remain hopeful that it doesnt suck-mind you it is hope and not confidence.
Lol
Funny! Here's a sugarcube
Not really. Flamed if you do, flamed if you don't. If it was left out, you'd get a lot of angry posters saying 'couldnt they at least add something to space combat?', that's what the multitude of forum threads before the announcement clearly showed.
If they'd left things out and said that it would be something for after release, with an expansion or such, people would have said 'yeah, we've heard that before, empty promises'.
In fact, that's exactly what is happening now, people keep babbling about how bad space combat is even when the BW guys themselves have already said that they wanted to explore the possibilities and option regarding space combat with the feedback and suggestions from players.
The ACTUAL size of MMORPG worlds: a comparison list between MMO's
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums:
Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
I see all this talk about a release DATE being given... where? A release estimate was given, no date. All a estimate means is.. gee we have no idea when we are goiing to release this game right now, please stay tuned. To me a release date would be an actual calendar date like Sept 21, 2011. My opinion.
Currently bored with MMO's.
Once the hype is removed from the announcement it basically leaves; ToR might release in the next 12 months
Ah well....
I for one, am glad they gave us a release windoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooow.
I mean, I'd prefer to have a fixed date as well, as I'd like to plan in some days off after launch but at least we now have a more specific timefraaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaame.
*munches on Maverick's suger lump*
My brand new bloggity blog.
This always happens because the Developer asks the investor "do you want to pay the bills for 3 more months so we can polish up the game?". The investor usually says yes.
From little bits and pieces of what I read, the game has many loose ends they need to tie up. I hear "we are not talking about that yet" on several topics, which means they are not nearly ready.
By the time they give a release date, it will probably be 4 months after they announce. So December to March is probable.
I must meditate now on my new "Force Patience" ability.
I love it when people say this. So there is a chance the game will be delayed for a few month. It'll be the same game, hopefully (slightly) better, but you would've lost your interest? Ofcourse, people looking forward to this game won't be as hyped for a while, but when the game will have its release date, and EA is going to start with a huge marketing campaign, you'll be the first to buy the game (exaggerated).
What people don't realize is that BioWares release strategy will happen quickly and without warning.
In fact, the entire population of players won't even remember buying, installing or logging in. Just a few months from now, just like today, you all will be sitting down at your computer to check out MMORPG.com, then, 3 days later you'll wake up at your desks with level 15 toons.
isn't the release date of ME3 supposed to be in December 2011? If so, I can't imagine they would release TOR at the same time to compete with it, so if they don't release by September, maybe October, wouldn't they want to push TOR back to 2012 to avoid ME3? It will only take ME3 players a couple of weeks to get board of it so they could release in first quarter of 2012. Just wondering if the timed release of ME3 has anything to do with the release date of TOR.
i still think it will be september when the star wars bluerays come out, just to capatilise on the hype around that time any later like the first quater of 2012 then you have to expect stiffer competition in the build up for gw2 and blizzards un named new mmo, which im sure there waiting to anounce just around the tor launch when ever it may be.
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Future: wishing for SWG 2, World of Warcraft Classic
Played: Most current and extinct MMO's - 18 Years in....
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So it will release in two or nine months. Since there are not much ads or signs of an open beta it may take a while.
It is an odd situation actually: the next few months would be a good point to release an AA MMO, but GW2 isn´t ready, TOR is not ready, TERA I don´t know and Diablo3 is going to be used to counter the previous games, if they steal too much WoW-subs... my crystal orb wasn´t very expensive though.
This info is pretty much covered in another already open thread, so I'm locking this one.
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