The Old Republic is gunning for WOW

EA and LucasArts executives have told videogaming247 that they are targeting World of Warcraft-sized success with Star Wars: The Old Republic.

The BioWare-developed MMO was announced this week and you can find everything there is to know about it (not much, unfortunately) here on Eurogamer. LucasArts is publishing the game, but EA, as owner of BioWare, is also involved.

"We have very high expectations for this," EA Games president Frank Gibeau told vg247. "Just look at the base of Star Wars fans, plus what BioWare can do. Trust me: we want to win. EA's reputation is for wanting to win.

"This is going to be a powerful category and there's lots of ways to compete in this category," Gibeau continued. "[Blizzard] created a much larger opportunity for everybody else, but that doesn't mean it's going to stay that way."

LucasArts' online chief Tom Nichols chimed in, betting that The Old Republic's emphasis on story would bring record numbers of players to massively multiplayer gaming.

"Our goal is to show that by bringing storytelling to the genre that we can attract an even wider audience. Plus, we have the benefit of this huge brand, which has done very, very well for nearly 30 years."

Asked specifically if the game would be bigger than WOW, Nichols said: "I think this game has that potential."

The executives are the first in the MMO industry to be bold enough to predict that they can take on and best Blizzard's record number of subscriptions.

Star Wars: The Old Republic has no release date as yet, and has only been confirmed for PC, although Gibeau suggested that a console version was "under consideration".