BioWare and LucasArts are excited to announce that Star Wars™: The Old Republic™ will officially launch in Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong and Singapore on March 1st, 2012! This is very big news today and much earlier than many fans in those regions were expecting to get this news.
BioWare announced today:
Our biggest priority for The Old Republic has always been to deliver a high quality product and high quality service and we are pleased with our results in North America and Europe. We appreciate that our fans in these countries have been patient and we are excited to deliver this same great customer experience to players this March.
As for pricing of the SWTOR release to these zones:
Star Wars: The Old Republic will be available in both Standard and Digital Deluxe editions. The Standard Edition will retail for $79.99 AUD / $89.99 NZD / $389.00 HKD / $64.00 SGD and the Digital Deluxe Edition of the game, an Origin.com exclusive, will retail for $89.99 AUD / $99.99 NZD / $465.00 HKD / $76.90 SGD. 30 days of game time will be included with every version of the game, and after that time players will be able to continue playing the game by paying a monthly subscription, or by purchasing a 60-Day Pre-Paid Game Time Card for $32.99 AUS / $42.99 NZD / $249.00 HKD / $39.90 SGD. Star Wars: The Old Republic has three recurring subscription plans and players in Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong and Singapore will be charged in USD:
1 Month Subscription (automatically billed every 30 days): $14.99 USD per month
3 Month Subscription (automatically billed every 90 days): $13.99 USD per month (one-time charge of $41.97 USD)
6 Month Subscription (automatically billed every 180 days): $12.99 USD per month (one-time charge of $77.94 USD)
Star Wars: The Old Republic is currently available for pre-order* at the following participating retailers in Australia and New Zealand. There are no participating retailers in Hong Kong and Singapore for pre-orders. Also, there will be no pre-orders available at Origin.com:
Full details on the SWTOR News feed.
Games On Net interviewed Grant McDaniel, Senior Development Director of Live Services, about the upcoming launch to this region and has some great questions and answers worth taking the time to read over. Among these are:
How many servers are being deployed for the Australian launch? Will that number go up to meet player demand?
Does EA/Bioware have any data on how many Australians are currently playing on US and European servers?
Will Australians receive access to some sort of reprinting of the game’s collector’s edition for their launch, or was that strictly limited? Are there any plans for new editions for this launch?
Does EA/Bioware feel the staggered launch has been successful? Were there any issues with the launch that were headed off by restricting it to one territory?
This is a good and interesting read even if you’re not located in this region and if you’re already playing the game. Read the full interview here.
We will continue to update you on this as the story develops.
