EndWar PC Coming After Consoles Due to Piracy; PC Pirates Would 'Cannibalize' Console Sales

Following up on yesterday's report that a PC release of Tom Clancy's EndWar is likely, creative director Michael de Plater has now revealed that piracy is to blame for the delayed PC version of the Ubisoft Shanhai-developed voice-controlled RTS game.

"To be honest, if PC wasn't pirated to hell and back, there'd probably be a PC version coming out the same day as the other two,"

Plater told VG247. The PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 editions of EndWar arrive November 7.

"The level of piracy that you get with the PC just cannibalizes the others, because people just steal that version," he elaborated. "Piracy's basically killing PC."

In addition to Ubisoft, publisher Electronic Arts is also known to delay PC versions until after a game hits consoles, though it has not explicitly cited piracy as the cause.

For example, EA Redwood Shores' Dead Space hits PS3 and Xbox 360 on October 14, with the PC version coming the next week. And DICE's Mirror's Edge, once slated to ship simultaneously on consoles and PC, will now hit PS3 and Xbox 360 on November 11 while the PC version is targeted for a vague "winter" release window.