Star Wars: The Old Republic Planned For Q4, But Could Slip to 2012

Gamasutra is pointing out some comments made by Electronic Arts CFO Eric Brown during today's Citi 2011 Tech Conference, including word on the publisher's tentative plans to release Star Wars: The Old Republic during the fourth quarter of this year. They're not ruling out a possible delay until 2012, though:
Industry watchers also have their eyes on preorders for another major EA title: BioWare Austin-developed Star Wars: The Old Republic. Brown said that EA doesn't have specific preorder numbers for the hotly-anticipated MMORPG, but said the "title demand is tracking consistent with our expectations."

The company still expects the MMO to launch this calender year, but EA's fiscal guidance takes into account a possible slip into first calendar quarter of 2012 (fiscal Q4) if needed, Brown said. "We have a date set internally [for calendar Q4], with a lot of assumptions around it," he said.

"We're not done until we're done. ... We're not going to know with enough certainty to publicly announce a release date," until later this month or sometime in October, said Brown of the MMO.

Brown added that the marketing budget for Battlefield 3 is larger than that of The Old Republic, due to Battlefield 3 being a packaged game that has a shorter expected lifespan than an MMO. "It's going to be a different spend curve," he said.