SOE: Planetside Next due late Q1/early Q2, Free Realms PS3 probably launching next month

SOE head John Smedley has told Eurogamer that he expects Planetside Next to launch in either later first quarter or early second quarter of 2011.

"We've announced publicly that the game is in development," said Smedley. "It's a game that's codenamed PlanetSide Next.

"We haven't announced a release date for it, but ... we're looking at late first-quarter, early second-quarter."

The first mention of Planetside Next came in 2009 from Smedley, although back in December he hinted that it would be revealed in March.

Smedley also confirmed that Free Realms, the kid-friendly MMO universe that's been on PC since 2009, has gone into submission for PS3 at SCEA and SCEE. Smedley predicted February and March launches respectively.

"This is in submission at SCEA right now. Once it's done with that, once it's through, we'll be launching it in SCEE.

"If I was a betting man, I'm betting sometime early February it gets launched on the PS3 in SCEA. And probably, and this is a guess, sometime in March for SCEE. And that will use a free-to-play business model on PS3."

Free Realms has 12 million users on PC as of last June.

SOE's latest MMO, DC Universe Online, launched last week on PC and PS3, to become the console's first MMO.

It entered into the top ten in the UK charts this morning.