EA's failure to release Dark Knight game a financial fail, says analyst

Speaking to the Associate Press (Via Edge) under anonymity, an Electronic Arts manager confirmed that Pandemic Studios was indeed producing a game based on the recent Batman flick, The Dark Knight. The AP piece speculates that the game may have been shelved due to quality concerns, actor Heath Ledger's passing, or poor sales potential.

Why so serious? Because industry analyst Michael Pacther feels the game could have sold four million units, a huge improvement over the abysmal sales of EA's Batman Begins which only moved 587,000 copies. Translated into the language that EA speaks so fluently (money), that's $100 million, $70 of which could have gone directly to the publisher.

Dark Knight actor Gary Oldman had spilled the beans to G4 about the game's existence in an interview recently, but a title had never officially been announced. According to the EA manager who backed up Oldman's claims, the game doesn't appear on EA's internal release list through March of 2009.

So would anyone buy this game based on the strength of the movie alone? If the quality of the title was poor, does anyone think consumers are smart enough to keep their purchases in check? Or do you think they'd blindly fork over cash for digital trashed based on the name alone?