Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince Delayed to 2009

Electronic Arts and Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment, the two parties involved in bringing the Harry Potter universe to videogames, are now announcing that the Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince video game will not be released in 2008, but will rather be launched at the same time with the movie based on the homonymous book written by J.K. Rowling. The two parties believe that the simultaneous release will occur during the summer of 2009.

Martin Tremblay, who is the president of Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment, believes that the game, in its current state, is an “excellent interactive extension of the film” but that does not mean that such a long delay, of more than six months, will not affect the publisher. As news broke, the shares of Electronic Arts took a dive and lost more than 3% in trading.

The revenue that Electronic Arts hoped to gain from selling the game exceeds 150 million dollars; thus, the financial estimations of the company have been adjusted.

Robert Nashak, who is vice president of EA Casual Studios, says about the Harry Potter game that “We are creating an immersive game experience that Potter fans around the world will really enjoy playing as they fly and duel their way through the story of the film. The game will feature new Wii gestures and increased gameplay capabilities across all of the platforms”.

The title is developed by the Bright Light Studio, which is wholly owned by EA. The studio also created the Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix video game, and the new installment in the series is set to make its debut on the Nintendo Wii, the Xbox 360, the PlayStation 3, the PlayStation 2, the PSP, the Nintendo DS, the PC and the Mac. It's widely expected that versions of the game for mobile phones will also be announced before the summer of 2009.