Is The Old Republic heading to Xbox 360?

by Justin Olivetti on Mar 29th 2010 10:00AM

Sci-Fi, Rumors, Star Wars: The Old Republic

Is the Force so strong with BioWare's Star Wars: The Old Republic that it may accomplish what many MMORPGs promise yet could not do: to come out on a console as well as the PC? According to an internal Xbox 360 release list procured by VG247, TOR is listed as one of the upcoming titles (with a release date of "TBC-2011") for the 360.

While several MMORPG developers state that a console version of their title is in the works for a future release (and in many cases, fail to realize it), BioWare certainly has an exceptional track record of bringing their past RPGs to both PC and consoles, including the first Knights of the Old Republic and their recent Mass Effect 2. Speculation about a possible console version of TOR has run rampant since the game's announcement. Back in 2008, EA's Frank Gibeau hinted at it saying, "We're definitely looking at the opportunity to bring the MMO experience to console, without question."

True or not, a console presence for TOR would definitely be a great boon for EA, and an opportunity to grasp a larger share of the subscriber market.

[Thanks Sharuk!]

UPDATE: Sean Dahlberg on the TOR forums said today that TOR is currently being made for PC only: "Star Wars: The Old Republic is currently being developed for the personal computer (PC) using the Microsoft® Windows® operating system. While we recognize that there are other operating systems and platforms available for games today, our development is specific to the personal computer using the Windows operating system at this time."

Tags: bioware, breaking, console, knights-of-the-old-republic, mass-effect-2, star-wars-the-old-republic, the-old-republic, tor, Xbox360

Reader Comments (43)

I don't understand why people are so against console MMOs. The player base increases by a huge margin if you open up the console audience, which is generally a good thing in MMOs.

We all know SWTOR will be a casual MMO, a more mass market MMO. Opening this up to the console would fit that.

The only issue is working around XBox Live fees and patching around that.

I am willing to bet the next Blizzard MMO will be console friendly.

Okay wow most of you are acting like babies, it is a game. Take the stat that there are about 10 million people world wide that play world of war craft. Then consider that there are more people that play Modern Warfare 2 for the Xbox, I know when I started playing the game for the first week I was rate at 10,000,000 +. These companies would be stupid not to move into the console market with more advanced MMOs. Now as for those of you saying that having a controller limits what you can do, bologna! A controller, either the 360 or PS3, can easily be made to do dozens of things with combinations of the triggers, bumpers, right hand 4 buttons and the D-pad. And frankly such a configuration would, for many who grew up playing console, be easier than trying to figure out nonsensical keyboard commands. This would allow many people who have never gotten into these games a chance to try these. So suck it they will be moving to the console because that is where the money is.

As someone who was constantly frustrated by computer games, I welcome this with little trepidation.