Rumored investment way off, MMO will be successful with 500,000 subs.
Star Wars: The Old Republic is "incurring significant development costs" Electronic Arts confirmed last night in its quarterly conference call. But the rumored $300 million price tag is ridiculous, the publisher's executives insist, and the game will be "substantially profitable" with 500,000 subscribers.
After reporting a steep loss for the fiscal quarter yesterday, but with adjusted earnings that beat Wall Street projections, Electronic Arts fielded questions during its conference call, and a number of those questions centered on the BioWare-developed Star Wars MMO, The Old Republic.
After reporting a steep loss for the fiscal quarter yesterday, but with adjusted earnings that beat Wall Street projections, Electronic Arts fielded questions during its conference call, and a number of those questions centered on the BioWare-developed Star Wars MMO, The Old Republic.
On when the game will finally ship, EA CFO Eric Brown said SWTOR "is expected to ship in calendar 2011, but after the close of [fiscal year] 2011." EA's fiscal fourth quarter for 2011 closes on March 31. That means the targeted released window is sometime between April 1 and December 31.
On the MMO's cost, EA CEO John Riccitiello refused to provide specifics, but he did say the investment is "substantially less" than the rumored $300 million cost. Riccitiello also commented on analyst projections that SWTOR will need at least 2 million subscribers to be profitable.
"At half a million subscribers, the game is substantially profitable, but it's not the sort of thing we would write home about," Riccitiello said. "Anything north of one million subscribers is a very profitable business."
But that's nowhere near Activision-Blizzard's market leader, World of Warcraft, and its 12 million subs. Does that mean SWTOR shouldn't be considered a WoW challenger?
"It's our view that we can be very successful without fundamentally challenging the market leader because we think we'll probably hit the smaller competitors harder when we get out there," Riccitiello said, before adding: "Of course, we have no particular ambition to be a distant number two. Our ambitions are higher than that, but we throttle back a little bit relative to our financial projections."
Riccitiello also fired up shooter fans when he said EA's long-term goal is to "take back the first-person shooter" crown from Activision and Call of Duty. With Crysis 2 and Bulletstorm on the way, and the next installment in the Battlefield franchise now in development, the CEO said EA is well-positioned for the future. And that's before the publisher shows its FPS ace in the hole.
"This year, with the trail end of Battlefield Bad Company 2 still doing well, Medal of Honor doing well, Crysis and Bulletstorm, we're clearly going to make more progress on our goal, and that's before we get to what I think is going to be a very exciting entry later in the year that we're not yet announcing," Riccitiello said.
All signs point to the mystery title being the first game from Call of Duty creators and former Infinity Ward bosses Jason West and Vince Zampella and their new studio, Respawn Entertainment.
On the MMO's cost, EA CEO John Riccitiello refused to provide specifics, but he did say the investment is "substantially less" than the rumored $300 million cost. Riccitiello also commented on analyst projections that SWTOR will need at least 2 million subscribers to be profitable.
"At half a million subscribers, the game is substantially profitable, but it's not the sort of thing we would write home about," Riccitiello said. "Anything north of one million subscribers is a very profitable business."
But that's nowhere near Activision-Blizzard's market leader, World of Warcraft, and its 12 million subs. Does that mean SWTOR shouldn't be considered a WoW challenger?
"It's our view that we can be very successful without fundamentally challenging the market leader because we think we'll probably hit the smaller competitors harder when we get out there," Riccitiello said, before adding: "Of course, we have no particular ambition to be a distant number two. Our ambitions are higher than that, but we throttle back a little bit relative to our financial projections."
Riccitiello also fired up shooter fans when he said EA's long-term goal is to "take back the first-person shooter" crown from Activision and Call of Duty. With Crysis 2 and Bulletstorm on the way, and the next installment in the Battlefield franchise now in development, the CEO said EA is well-positioned for the future. And that's before the publisher shows its FPS ace in the hole.
"This year, with the trail end of Battlefield Bad Company 2 still doing well, Medal of Honor doing well, Crysis and Bulletstorm, we're clearly going to make more progress on our goal, and that's before we get to what I think is going to be a very exciting entry later in the year that we're not yet announcing," Riccitiello said.
All signs point to the mystery title being the first game from Call of Duty creators and former Infinity Ward bosses Jason West and Vince Zampella and their new studio, Respawn Entertainment.
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