STAR WARS: THE OLD REPUBLIC Only Launching in North America & Europe

That's correct, those Star Wars fans living outside North America and Europe will NOT be playing Star Wars: The Old Republic when it launches this year. That includes keen players in Australia, Japan, South America, etc. The news was revealed through a statement from developers BIOWARE on kotaku.com. The statement read:

To all of our fans outside of North America and Europe: Today we've announced the pre-order details for the initial launch of Star Wars: The Old Republic, and as you may now know, we've taken the difficult but necessary decision to limit our initial launch supply for the game. BioWare and LucasArts are completely focused on building an exceptional game and an exceptional game service to go with it. We decided to constrain our launch capacity to ensure we deliver a great experience to every player. Part of the reason this decision was made was because of the overwhelming demand for The Old Republic, and we're humbled by that level of excitement and anticipation. We fully intend to deliver to you an amazing game when we expand our service post-launch, but right now we cannot commit to any timeframe for when that may happen. As soon as we have more information about additional launches in more territories, we'll let you know. We are committed to delivering Star Wars: The Old Republic to BioWare and Star Wars fans around the world, and to growing a truly global community.

The news will come as a shock to many international players. Though no set release date has been revealed yet, pre-orders are now available for Star Wars: The Old Republic (for North-American and European players) and will allow lucky players to get into the game before anyone else (whenever that might be).