EA No New Star Wars Games March 2014

While the gaming populace was instantly filled with equal parts elation and apprehension over the announcement of EA's exclusive licensing deal for the Star Wars IP, a lot of that trepidation should easily be calmed once gamers get their hands on the games. Unfortunately, as it turns out, that won't be any time soon.

According to an Electronic Arts investor call, the publisher will not deliver any Star Wars games during their fiscal year 2013. All fiscal years are different, but EA's runs from April 1, 2013 to March 30, 2014. In other words, gamers should not expect a new Star Wars game any earlier than April of 2014.

Star Wars games are coming, though — gamers are well aware of that — but developers Visceral Games, BioWare, and DICE (who are presumably all working on titles) need some development to get them right. Even so, this announcement gives us some idea when EA might be thinking of releasing the first of many Star Wars games.

It was almost like a well-timed series of announcements — EA reveals their fiscal earnings for 2012, which were up thanks to strong SimCity sales, the day after they announce a blockbuster deal with Disney. In other words, while gamers are focused on the prospect of new Star Wars games, EA can further tip the scales in their favor with investors. And they can promise more exciting content is in the pipeline for the foreseeable future, including Battlefield 4.

Obviously, development on a triple-A game takes time, and we've only just learned about the licensing deal yesterday. That being said, Disney did reveal they are already planning new Star Wars games, which leads us to believe this deal was only "confirmed" yesterday, but has been in the works for a while.

So while we don't when these games might release, we do know that they are headed for "all interactive platforms," and they will be using DICE's revolutionary Frostbite 3.0 Engine. However, as we cited in a previous post, that calls into question whether Wii U will be considered among those interactive platforms.

Stick tuned for more Star Wars news as EA teases more about their deal with Disney.

Did you expect Electronic Arts to launch a Star Wars game before Spring of 2014? Which developer should they prioritize for the first 2014 launch: Visceral or DICE?

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Source: EA