Electronic Arts upbeat about holiday season sales

By Michelle Martin

FRANKFURT Aug 15 (Reuters) - Video games publisher Electronic Arts (EA) is upbeat about Christmas holiday sales as it expects to release top titles and prepares its most high profile launch ever: "Star Wars: The Old Republic".

"We think it should be a very attractive season for Electronic Arts as we have quite a few blockbusters in the pipeline," Jens Uwe Intat, the head of sales and distribution for Europe, told Reuters ahead of Gamescom, Europe's biggest video games trade fair.

The company, which develops games for the consoles of Sony Corp, Nintendo and Microsoft, also said it was optimistic about the launch of the widely anticipated online game "Star Wars: The Old Republic,"

The launch date for the new game has not yet been named, but Intat said he hoped it would be announced before the holiday season.

"We have lots of people who have been subscribing to newsletters and webpages so we are actually feeling very bullish about the game," Intat said.

He added that the company was "still in the process of fine-tuning" services for the game.

EA hopes the online game will rival Activision Blizzard "World of Warcraft", which has more than 12 million subscribers. EA is said to be spending more than $100 million to develop "Star Wars".

Other big games in EA's Christmas line-up include the shooter game "Battlefield 3", racing game "Need for Speed" and "Sims Pet".