Pachter believes "a significant portion" Dragon Age 3 team "was reassigned" to SWTOR

Wedbush Securities analyst Michael Pachter believes the extra manpower at BioWare was pulled into Star Wars: The Old Republic development has consequentially slowed development on Dragon Age 3.

Speaking in an industry note, Pachter said he expected the next installment in the Dragon Age series to release in Q4 2013, but it appears to have "slipped into FY14" instead.

"We believe that a significant portion of the BioWare team responsible for the game was reassigned to Star Wars in order to create content and fix bugs to keep the game's audience engaged," Pachter said, adding that despite the lack of news on the game, he is still "bullish" on EA's growth.

"We remain incorrigibly positive on the EA story," he said. "Despite a relatively low number of packaged good releases this year, we expect EA to grow revenue and earnings, primarily due to unrivalled digital strength. We believe EA represents the best opportunity for investors to benefit from continued digital growth for the industry next year, as well as from a likely rebound in packaged goods sales next year."

During PAX East, Dragon Age creative director Mike Laidlaw said that while nothing regarding a third installment in the series has been announced or confirmed, the team was looking into locations for the next game and organizing player feedback before going into full-on development mode.

In March, the series' executive producer Mark Darrah said the team had "moved on" from DA2 development and onto “the next phase of Dragon Age’s future.”

Maybe something towards the end of the year will be announced, like, oh we don' know, the VGAs? It's possible, but don't put any money on it.

Thanks, GI International.