EA working on new Philosopher's Stone title?

Reports this morning suggest that EA is making another game based on Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, this time for PS2, Xbox and GameCube, which would appear at retail in early Autumn.

Although EA has already released games based on the Philosopher's Stone, these only appeared on PC, PSone and Nintendo handhelds, as it was deemed more important to have the next-generation versions of the Chamber of Secrets better prepared for the following year.

With the next Potter film - the Prisoner of Azkaban - not due until next year, the DVD of the most recent film - the Chamber of Secrets - already released, and the fifth book - the Order of the Phoenix - released last Saturday, without this move EA would be left with just Quidditch World Cup to harness Potter fandom this Christmas.

The report, which appeared on UK games news website C&VG, is apparently based on a leaked release schedule (the game certainly doesn't appear on EA schedules currently available to the press) and claims that the game is due out on September 26th in Europe, in plenty of time for the Christmas rush.

They also claim that UK-based Warthog could be handling development, based on the developer's unannounced film licence title, which bears both EA and WB (Warner Bros.) tags. Warthog is already collaborating with EA/WB on a game to coincide with the forthcoming Looney Tunes film, Looney Tunes Back In Action.

Given that Potter mania is definitely Cleansweeping the land at the moment, with more than 1.8 million sales to date of the latest book in the UK alone, it wouldn't be too surprising if EA were planning more than one game based on the franchise this Christmas. With "no comment" the blanket response to inquiries though, it looks like it'll be a time and place of EA's choosing - perhaps their games summit in San Francisco next month - that anybody finds out for sure.