Superman, MOH delayed

By Tom Bramwell Published 4 May, 2006

To make better games.

EA's decided to delay Superman Returns and Medal of Honor: Airborne in order to deliver a higher quality of game, according to veepee Frank Gibeau.

Addressing investors in a conference call t'other day, Gibeau described both as "very ambitious" games and indicated that the publisher was reluctant to go before they're ready.

Besides, it doesn't matter if Superman has to hang about, he said, because then it'll tie in nicely with the DVD release at Christmas. When that happens, he said, "There are more vehicles for us to market and promote the game, and we're going to get a better game this fall than we would have with the movie release."

As for Airborne, due on PC, PS3 and Xbox 360 as well as current-gen formats, Gibeau said to expect it in the first three months of 2007 - i.e. the company's fourth quarter - because "we are prioritising game quality higher than making [Christmas]".

Whether it'll work, however, is another thing - as anybody who had the misfortune to plug through the delayed-because-we-wanted-it-to-be-right Godfather game will readily attest.

Despite the delay, both are likely to feature at E3 in some way.

Picture of Tom.

About Tom Bramwell

Tom is Operations director of Eurogamer Network and Editor-at-Large of Eurogamer.net. He joined the company in February 2000.

Read more articles from Tom by visiting the Tom Bramwell archive page.

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Comments (17) Latest comment 6 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • Triggerhappytel #1 6 years ago

    It's probably because both these games are destined to be shit.

    Look at EA's track record for the last two games of comic book movies they released - Batman Begins and Catwoman. Both released alongside the film, both critically slammed and both performed poorly at retail.

    I'm not even gonna mention the Medal of Honour games. No doubt it'll sell well on next-gen, regardless.

  • el_pollo_diablo #2 6 years ago

    I remember EA saying something similar last time - Godfather was it? Which turned out to be a bit of a stinker.

  • Ceatlan #3 6 years ago

    Its more likely that the games either don't actually have a chance of being in a working state by the original planned date, or that they are truly unbelievably dire, and EA have just been forced into to delaying them until they are in some semblance of releasable state. I don't think it will have anything to do with actually making them good games, just releasable ones.

  • Kiigan #4 6 years ago

    I like the way games aren't considered late anymore - instead they are "intentionally delayed to create an even more awesome game experience!" etc :)

    The new direction for Medal of Honour sounds interesting enough though. The Superman game... well I remain hopeful but have yet to see any evidence that there IS a game yet as such - that pre-rendered footage was nice but didn't illustrate any actual game at work.

  • Kiigan #5 6 years ago

    As George Clinton says... how late do you have to be before you are considered absent?

  • stuarty_2003 #6 6 years ago

    Assuming Halo 3 comes out in Q1 '07 I can't see MoH doing that well to be honest.

  • Talha #7 6 years ago

    @stuarty_2003 : My oh my, a whole 6 posts before somebody name-dropped Halo. Please care to tell me what Halo has got to do with MoH? Oh yeah, they are damn similar - both are shooters, both have weapons! I guess every other games company should delay/drop their entire lineup for 2007 so that the mighty Halo can have a clean run.

    For me, how these games fare will depend solely on how they ARE, since even EA have apparently realized that they can't keep on selling clunkers forever. Here's hoping..

  • stuarty_2003 #8 6 years ago

    @Talha: If it had been HL2 coming out in Q1 '07 the arguement would still have been valid. Business is business, and with the somewhat lacklustre performances of the last few MoH games, I think most publishers, EA aside, realise that getting in the way of massive franchises like HL2, Halo, even Doom can hinder the performance of their products. Added to that, if you look at the article on here about 2005 game sales, only one MoH game makes it into the PS2 top 10 and that was Frontline...it came out 3 years ago.

  • Talha #9 6 years ago

    @stuarty_2003 : I agree with you - anyone new to the series, faced with a choice of MoH and Halo, will at least think twice. Also, there has been a lot of time since the last MoH game, and even longer since the series appeared on PC. In addition to that, IMHO, it has been comprehensively trumped by the likes of CoD and BIA.

    Still, recent chart history shows that mostly you cannot trust a shit game to sell millions, especially if it is not a movie license or a sports title. Therefore, EA have an uphill battle for MoH whichever way you look at it.

  • Zero Beat #10 6 years ago

    It'll be disappointing if Superman's only average, not terrible.

  • rinoaMW #11 6 years ago

    Oh c'mon - Superman GTA sounds ok - it has the potential to be good like Spiderman 2...

    I know its EA, but we can HOPE, right?

  • Talha #12 6 years ago

    OOOoooh, you guys are soooo clever... You hate EA and make a show of it, acting as if that company is not capable of coming up with a good game. You act as if other game companies don't exist and if they do, all their games are beacons of unparalleled brilliance. Don't you guys realize how juvenile that sounds? Bashing EA went out of fashion about a decade ago and that does not add one iota to your perceived intelligence.

    Oh well, I guess you will keep on bashing EA and bash me for added pleasure from this post on. Go ahead...

  • Freek #13 6 years ago

    "There are more vehicles for us to market and promote the game"

    Becuase just saying: "We're going to putt a trailer on the DVD" makes you sound less important.

  • rinoaMW #14 6 years ago

    well Talha, i was actually refering to the fact the EA are the licence whore mongering, unethical work practitioneers that they are. Their Lord of the Rings games were quite good after all. Its not that they don't make good games, it's their ethics that i hate about them.

    and gone are the days when they were a reletively nice company making games and apps for the Amiga.

    If EA had their way, there wouldn't be any other games companies THAT exist... just think of that 'utopia'....

  • Talha #15 6 years ago

    @rinoaMW : Fair enough - I agree, that's hardly my idea of utopia. However, my post was aimed at the general trend of the thread and not you specifically.

  • rinoaMW #16 6 years ago

    yeah i know :)

  • miiiguel #17 6 years ago

    Beeing the biggest entertainment sw company, EA, I can't remember of a single game from their stuidos that "survived" in a gamers mind beyond its lauch window, you know, like Halo, or FF's series, or GTA, Sonic, DMC, a lot... ., but can't remember one from EA...