Black & White on its way

As part of the Black & White PlayStation presentation in Wokingam yesterday, organised by publisher Midas Interactive, designer Peter Molyneux dropped in for an hour long question and answer session with the European press. A full write-up of what he had to say will be posted by us as a massive two part interview over the next couple of weeks, but one of the tidbits of information that slipped out was apparent confirmation that the PC version of the game should indeed be released on March 30th.

This date first popped up in an exclusive report right here on EuroGamer a month ago, when we noticed that the release schedule on EA Europe's press intranet site had changed the game's status from "TBC" (To Be Confirmed) to March 30th. Confusion soon broke out though, as PC Gamer mistakenly reported "it's finished" in big letters on the front cover of their magazine, a spokesman for Lionhead told us that the game was still on track for a late February / early March release, and then EA Europe pushed the release date back another week to April 6th, before eventually changing it back to TBC again. Then, just last week, Lionhead revealed that a (hopefully) final version of the game had been sent to EA for testing, something which should take about two weeks if everything goes well, followed by a further week or two for duplication and distribution.

It now seems that our initial report was correct though, and that March 30th is the release date that EA are hoping to meet. In the press conference yesterday Peter was asked about online support for the game, and mentioned that "right from day one, right from the 30th of March, anyone can go on to [the website] and vote for what they would like the development team to develop next in the form of an add-on for the game". Immediately I asked if that release date was now confirmed, and Peter laughed and said "you know, I've got myself into a stupid position". His PR minder Cathy bailed him out, telling us that "we'll be able to officially announce the release date some time next week and confirm it. And I think that's the safest thing to say, don't you?"

Peter jokingly added that "the fact that if it isn't the 30th of March then I commit ritual suicide in a Virgin Megastore has nothing to do with it". So, start saving up your euros - it looks like the PC version of Black & White is indeed just four weeks from release here in Europe!