Star Wars: TOR is a "10 year opportunity"

EA is hoping that its forthcoming MMO, Star Wars: The Old Republic, will have a 10 year lifespan.

CFO Eric Brown told the UBS Annual Media and Communications Conference in New York, "Our assumptions for break-even and profitability are not seven digit subscribers. We think we can run and operate a very successful and profitable MMO at different levels.

"The key thing here is to really perfect the product. We're shooting for an extremely high quality game experience. We view this as a 10 year opportunity."

To give you some idea of where its competitors stand, Lord of the Rings Online is in its fourth year, World of Warcraft is now in its seventh year and EVE Online is in its eighth year.

Not a great deal of gameplay information has seeped out to put Brown's claims into any context, but in the absence of new footage, Eurogamer recently cut together its own unofficial trailer.

EA recently announced that the BioWare-developed MMO is due for release between April and December next year.