Wait Longer, We Must - The UpStream

Wait Longer, We Must

posted Saturday Jan 16, 2010 by Josh Henry

Wait Longer, We Must

Looks like the American people aren't the only ones feeling the pain of our current recession or at least that's what the people of Electronic Arts are saying. Once again it seems EA Games is anticipating a less than ideal year. An EA spokesperson said,

Revised fiscal year 2010 expectations are primarily the result of weakness for EA and the overall packaged goods sector in Europe in December and a product mix shift to lower margin distribution products in the December quarter, primarily in North America.

After the announcement, EA's CEO John Riccitiello mentioned several big titles that EA is releasing this quarter like Army of Two: The 40th Day, Mass Effect 2, Dante's Inferno, Battlefield: Bad Company 2 and Command & Conquer 4: Tiberian Twilight trying to see the light at the end of this tunnel. On a lighter note, EA's digital sales were above expectations but not enough to offset lowered packaged-goods sales. The thing that caught my attention was that Riccitiello was also quoted saying "our major new MMO," presumably BioWare Austin's Star Wars: The Old Republic slated to release in Spring 2011.

Anyone who is remotely interested in the MMO market has probably heard about BioWare's MMO based in the Star Wars universe known as The Old Republic. Since the announcement of TOR, people have been speculating and debating its release since its announcement in October of 2008. In light of this recent announcement, TOR's forum-goers seem to be torn as to what they should think of this. In the past, EA Representatives have been misunderstood in their announcements, for example, the fiasco where the same CEO stated that TOR would be using a "micro-transactions" based subscription model. Shortly after this news hit the net there was a worldwide outcry against it and EA responded with a statement that there was currently no chosen sub model for TOR, it was a "misunderstanding."

The difference between the two situations? BioWare has actually confirmed that the news is indeed true and that they are aiming for a spring 2011 release. One question comes to mind though, will this effect the sales of TOR? After all, Blizzards expansion for World of Warcraft entitled Cataclysm is due to release this holiday season, plus the later release may take away from all the hype its built up. All of this could give the franchise a second or should a say third wind possibly preventing WoW's sales from taking away potential buyers from BioWare. For now though, we'll just have to wait and see what happens and hope for the best.

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