BioWare Has No Plans for Console SW: TOR

It’s official: If you want to play BioWare’s highly-anticipated Star Wars: The Old Republic, you’re going to have to get a gaming PC.

If you’ve been closely following information about the extremely-anticipated Star Wars MMOG in the works at BioWare, then you might have gotten excited when VG247 posted an internal release list from UK retailer GAME last week. Why would you be excited? Well, said release list listed Star Wars: The Old Republic under “Xbox 360,” leading some to believe that console owners would get their chance to adventure in a galaxy far, far away.

Unfortunately, it looks like you might have gotten your hopes up for nothing – BioWare has squashed that rumor in its tracks. “As to why The Old Republic is on that list, we have no idea but to allay any confusion, we should not be on there,” said the game’s community manager Sean Dahlberg.

“Star Wars: The Old Republic is currently being developed for the 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.”

It’s not surprising, really – with several exceptions like Final Fantasy XI (and XIV), MMOGs really don’t seem to have a home on consoles, with Cryptic putting the kibosh on the planned Xbox 360 version of Champions Online last week and all.

However, Dahlberg’s statement also seems to indicate that there is no Mac OS version of the game currently being planned. If true, that could be potentially problematic for BioWare – as one particularly insightful (and handsome) columnist once argued, MMOGs are social games, and people want to play with their friends. Even if only two people out of a group of ten play WoW on Macs, the other eight aren’t very likely to switch if their two buddies can’t switch either.

But that’s not the focus here, and I’m getting off topic. Anyway, this just confirms what most of us probably already suspected: If you’re looking forward to SW:TOR, you better be saving up for a gaming PC, son!