MCV/DEVELOP News, events, research and jobs from the games industry
Imported copies of Star Wars: The Old Republic are being sold via EB Games to customers who specifically pre-order the title.
The hotly anticipated MMO left Australian / New Zealand gamers wanting last year when it was announced that the gamewouldn’t be releasinghere at the same time as the rest of the world.
It was since confirmed that local playerswouldn’t be locked outof overseas servers, opening up the possibility of grey imports.
While Bioware has sincestated a target release datefor 1st March, that hasn’t stopped plenty of local players from wearing the poor connection which can accompany overseas MMO servers and playing anyway.
EB Games now has an imported version of the game listed on itsweb site, although stock is being ordered to fill local pre-orders, and isn’t being ranged on store shelves.
Late last year, Harvey Normanannounced an official moveto get into importing games with the launch of their new web siteHarvey Norman Direct Import. Interestingly, they appear not to be selling The Old Republic early, with no mention of the title anywhere on the site.
UPDATE: EB Games hasspoken to Kotakuabout its decision to grey import The Old Republic, stating that the lack of firm release date from either EA or Bioware (the 1st March date was a ‘target date’ only) was behind it.
Story originally published on MCV Pacific. To register for the MCV Pacific News Digest, follow this link:http://www.mcvpacific.com/user/index/register/journey/register
