Latest Harry Potter game pushed back to coincide with movie, will cost EA $120 million

by David Hinkle { Sep 9th 2008 at 2:32PM }

The new video game based on the movie, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, won't be meeting the public this year and is instead set to play in your living room and on the big screen at your local theater during the summer of 2009. This could be a good thing for fans, as it will give developers plenty of time to add some polish to the title. And from what we've already heard, some things were shaping up nicely, so we're extra excited that the game will get some more TLC before it hits retail shelves everywhere.

But, as good as this sounds to us (more time spent creating a game makes for a better game), it's not all peaches and creme for EA. The company projected that the game would bring in $120 million within its 2008 fiscal forecast. With the game being bumped back to 2009, it looks like EA will be relying on your future Boom Blox money a bit more.

Gallery: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

Source - Harry Potter game gets delayed
Source - Delay will cost EA quite a bit of money

[Via Joystiq]

Tags: ea, electronic-arts, half-blood-prince, harry-potter, harry-potter-and-the-half-blood-prince, harry-potter-half-blood-prince, jk-rowling

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Sisyphus @ Sep 9th 2008 2:57PM

I realize that that cost includes the many various platforms, but that's still an enormous investment. Hopefully, they'll make it a worthy purchase across the board.

Friwwies @ Sep 9th 2008 3:25PM

how come these sorts of things are always seen as "will cost EA $120 million" when in fact. its just what they expect they would have earned if released now. its not like they won't earn that money... just not NOW, but later, when released.
sure it will be more expensive to keep polishing the title. But they could just go "huh, later release. fine." and put it on the shelve until the movie is. All in all I really doubt they will be doing a $120 million polish job on a movie franchise title.

Matisyahu Serious @ Sep 9th 2008 3:32PM

"how come these sorts of things are always seen as "will cost EA $120 million" "

presumably because ea is a publicly held company, and forecasting their sales and potential profitability is large component of their stock price and value to investors.

zchry @ Sep 9th 2008 7:56PM

The problem is, I would assume, that they wanted to release before the movie so that they'd have a nice surge of purchases when the movie came out. By that time, things will surely have slowed down, and the movie would revitalize them a bit.

But by putting the game out at the same time as the movie, there won't be that extra surge. They'd have the hype surge associated with release (and the movie somewhat), but not the additional hype surge.

I can see this costing them. $120,000,000? Not exactly. Maybe a couple million. Maybe.

Then again, it is Harry Potter.

zchry @ Sep 9th 2008 7:53PM

I haven't read much on this game.

I hope the Wii version's great. I haven't played a Harry Potter game in years (they used to be a bit stinky), so I don't know the state of things. Anyone care to clue me in? I'm too lazy to do it myself, and I want to hear from fellow Wii-lovers.

To me, Harry Potter seems like it's something the Wii should excel at.