Headline RePLAY – 5.8.12

Today on Headline RePLAY: Star Wars: The Old Republic may have delayed Dragon Age III, Kingdom Hearts may finally be returning to consoles and Dark Souls’ infamous reputation has produced killer sales.   


Star Wars: The Old Republic’s subscription slide may have had unintended consequences: a delay in the development of Dragon Age III, says Wedbush Securities analyst Michael Pachter.

Dragon Age III appears to have slipped to FY:14,” Pachter speculated. “We had previously expected the next Dragon Age to be released in Q4:13, two years after its predecessor. However, we believe that a significant portion of the BioWare team responsible for the game was reassigned to Star Wars in order to create content and fix bugs to keep the game’s audience engaged.”

Despite the MMO’s 1.7 million to 1.3 million dip in active subscriptions, Pachter maintains a bullish view of EA.

“We remain incorrigibly positive on the EA story. Despite a relatively low number of packaged good releases this year, we expect EA to grow revenue and earnings, primarily due to unrivaled digital strength,” Pachter explained.

“We believe EA represents the best opportunity for investors to benefit from continued digital growth for the industry next year, as well as from a likely rebound in packaged goods sales next year.”



Kingdom Hearts has not seen a console release (or a numbered installment) since Kingdom Hearts II came out on the PS2 in 2004. Multiple handheld spinoffs later, series producer Tetsuya Nomura finally reveals that “it’s about time” for Kingdom Hearts return to consoles.

“I also feel that it’s about time that Kingdom Hearts should go back to being on a console,” Nomura told Game Informer.

“I’m not able to disclose any information on what’s coming next or any other future plans, but you may be able to find a hint if you play through Dream Drop Distance to the very end.”

|Source: VG247


Namco-Bandai has revealed that Dark Souls sold 1.19 million copies in the United States and Europe, proving that video gamers are masochists that enjoy seeing the Game Over screen over and over.

Combined with numbers by From Software, the publisher that handled the distribution of Dark Souls in Japan, the notoriously difficult RPG moved an additional 370,000 copies. 

Expect the number of sales to increase when Dark Souls: Prepare to Die Edition for the PC launches on August 24th.

|Source: Namco Bandai via Joystiq

No comments:

Post a Comment