according to bioware the game will be out around july to dec this year.most ppl is guessing around sep ^^.however we will be getting a open beta date before release date so we can still test the game earlier then release date.
http://darthhater.com/2011/03/15/release-date-window-moved-after-july-1st/Quote:Today
Eirc Brown:, CFO of Electronic Arts, spoke at the Lazard Capital
Markets Technology & Media Conference. The topic of Star Wars: The
Old Republic was once again brought up and one of the many interesting
things said by Brown was, "So we said it's going to launch sometime in
calendar, but not within Fiscal 11. So that basically pens down between
you know, April 1st and December 31st of this calendar year. It's also
reasonable to infer that it's not in our Q1 guidance. We gave Q1 Fiscal
11, Fiscal 12 non gap revenue guidance, minus 39 minus 44 cents and I
think it's not unreasonable to infer that it's not included in that 90
day period."
This indicates that the game most likely won't release before the 1st of July.
Brown
also talks about moving from a closed beta, to a semi-closed beta and
then eventually to an open beta and then says that EA will talk more
about Star Wars at E3, which takes place June 7-9th. Working
transcription follows after the jump. We will be adding more as it comes
in.
Quote:Question:
Turning to Star Wars, obviously very big opportunity for EA and Lucas
in the not too distance on future. The game appears to be on track at
this point. But can you talk about, where we might expect an open beta,
what that involves in terms of time, investment and to then gauge you
know, perhaps more specific launch timing and then a follow up to that.
What sort of gives you the confidence, that the subscription MMO model
is still relevant, given this massive diversion of content on these
other platforms?
Eirc Brown: Sure I'll just address timing first
and then you know speak to opportunities. So we have for the first time
street dated within a date range the Star Wars MMO. So we said it's
going to launch sometime in calendar, but not within Fiscal 11. So that
basically pens down between you know, April 1st and December 31st of
this calendar year. It's also reasonable to infer that it's not in our
Q1 guidance. We gave Q1 Fiscal 11, Fiscal 12 non gap revenue guidance,
minus 39 minus 44 cents and I think it's not unreasonable to infer that
it's not included in that 90 day period. So we've narrowed the window,
provided a window for the first time provided on the progress we've made
closed beta testing.The next phase will be to expand the beta testing.
Up until now it's been kind of the EA friends and family kind of testing
program. We need to expand the testing universe to make it more open
scalability, back-end systems, etc. Figure out concurrency etc. Where
there are choke points on different maps etc., tune it accordingly. We
will be increasing the beta. The business is that we have over a
million, closer to one and a half million, opted in happy to step up and
be beta testers. North of a million demand to do some free testing, I
think is a great indicator of the interest level of the franchise. We
haven't given specifics as to milestones, but we will move from closed,
to semi-closed, to open in preparation for launch. We'll talk more about
Star Wars at the coming E3 event.
Question: Is there a typical timeframe open beta or is it such a unique game that it's difficult to?
Eirc
Brown:: It's hard to say it's typical. There's only one other relevant
data point in terms of this scale of MMO. So it's hard to provide a rule
of thumb. You need months of different flavors of beta testing to
making the product generally available. We're really focused on
providing a great user experience, because not only do we want to
retain, kind of the core tier 1 users. We want word of mouth reference
ability to bring in tiers 2, 3 and 4. In terms of addressable market,
MMO's are a growth segment. If you look at the western worlds, again
North America plus Europe only, we'd estimate there about 12 million
people or so playing one or more MMO's. Roughly half are playing World
of Warcraft. I believe Activision sites about a 6 million western world
subscriber stat. So there's 12 million people to go after, 6 of whom are
playing one game, another 6 of whom are playing some combination of
other games. And then there's an opportunity in Asia, not necessarily
the same RPU characteristics. So we think that's 10-12 million people to
go after, that's a great addressable market right there. Like I said,
we've got well north of a million, million and a half ready to test for
free. We're not that concerned about generating initial demand. For us
it's about creating the right experience, expanded beyond the tier 1 and
the tier 2 users. You've got people that have never played an MMO
before but are interested in Star Wars, to engage and give it a try.
What's really important to us is striking the right balance so that we
serve the needs and demands, requirements of the core, pre-existing MMO
subscribers. They demand a lot of content, a lot of community, guilds
are very important, special group activities, raids and things like that
are real important inside an MMO. But then at the same time we want to
make it accessible, so someone can pick it up and play it for the first
time, recognize the Star Wars fiction, build a character and get into
the game without feeling overwhelmed or intimidated by the hardcore
experienced MMO player. If we're successful in doing that, our
addressable market is well beyond 12 million people, you know current
MMO players and the western market expands into more of a general gamer
population. Basically anyone that has certain minimum spec personal
computer. That's a very large potential addressable market. We look at
it as a tiered opportunity but starting with an addressable market of at
least 12 million.
Question: Extending that market is assuming
that the monthly subscription model could also be extended to a broader
audience or are there other potential modifications?
Eirc
Brown:: We've talked about going in with a traditional subscription
model, which is, requires the purchase of a game client, a PC game
client. That's the going in assumption. But we have no ruled out, in
terms of intent or design future micro-transactions because some
interesting opportunities is there. The key is you know, what do include
in a base monthly fee versus what do you charge extra for? So that
requires some pretty careful decisions making. For now we're focused on
the more traditional monthly subscription model.
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