EA: Star Wars Old Republic MMO Beyond Q2'11
EA confirms that Star Wars: The Old Republic won't hit the market until after March 31, 2011.
During EA's Q3 earnings call last night, the publisher confirmed that BioWare's upcoming Star Wars MMO will not make the publisher's next financial year. This means that fans will not see the game until sometime after March 31, 2011. The call verifies a previous forecast laid out by EA and LucasArts that Star Wars: The Old Republic was slated for an April or May 2011 release.
"We are not assuming that we bring a major new MMO to market in fiscal '11," said EA Chief financial Officer Eric Brown. "We will continue to increase significant development cost as we prepare this title for launch."
According to VG247, EA CEO John Riccitiello added that the MMO is a huge investment for the publisher, claiming that the costs involved are "gigantic." Gamers should brace themselves for the possibility that the game could be pushed back to the latter part of 2011 due to the significant cost. "MMOs can cost as much as two to six, seven times as much as a front-line title, if they’re done right," he said.
Despite the costs, Brown reassured the callers that the game will be repaid in full. "I think the important point here is you ask that title goes live, and we’re not giving any specific date, we’ll move from a net OpEx investment mode to a highly profitable op-income contributor," he said. "So it's a pretty important step change, when you compare a year with the MMO active versus the development stage that we’re currently in this fiscal year."
Let's hope the financial burden doesn't cause the publisher to implode before Q4 2011.

Dragon Age just went Triple Platinum. I don't think 1 year of expenses is going to kill this one. Not to mention their 1.1 Billion in Cash Assets.
I hope TOR is an awesome MMO and I am signed up for the beta and cannot wait!
It's EA. It should read:
Let's hope the financial burden causes the publisher to implode before Q4 2011.
I guess I might try Star Trek Online, depends on the final Kotaku review for me tho
Also, all the nubbies complaining about EA (yes, I agree they suck) should note the game is being made by Bioware. Bioware is the shiz naz.
Dude....It's being made by Bioware.
Bioware sets the standard in their games, others copy them. Their worst games are far better then most other developers "Greatest Hit".
I agree, both KOTOR were good, buggy crash prone but very fun. As far as pay a monthly fee to run around with a bunch of kiddies, no thanks.
Agreed. Bioware already has the technology to make games with good graphics that run on modest system requirements. They should use it to improve TOR's terrible graphics.
See Dragon Age for example. My 2006 PC with 2.2 GHZ AMD single core, 7800 GT and 2 GB of RAM runs it flawlessly on medium settings, even when the screen is filled with darkspawns. And Medium on Dragon Age looks a lot better than what we currently see from TOR.
A 2011 game like TOR should look at least as good as a 2008 game like Aion.
And 2011, that will be 2 years after DirectX 11 was released...