EA informed shareholders yesterday that it has delayed the Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince game and that the delay would cost the company $120 million in projected earnings.

This news comes three weeks after Warner Bros. announced that it had pushed back the latest Harry Potter movie to July 2009, prompting anger from fans of the series. Petitions, protests, and boycotts have since emerged.

At the time of this writing, EA stock prices have dropped 2.4% to $44.90.

The decision by EA to delay the game alongside the movie came as no surprise; analyst Todd Greenwald of Signal Hill stated shortly after the Warner Bros. announcement that his company "[doubts] that EA will attempt to release the title without the movie." EA’s financial forecast follows closely with the predictions of analyst Colin Sebastian of Lazard Capital Markets, who estimated that EA stood to lose $120 million this quarter when the expected 3 million sold units moved into fiscal 2009.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is set to release on at least nine platforms, including all three of Sony’s platforms, both of Nintendo’s platforms, Apple’s iPhone and Mac platforms, and the Xbox 360.

Almost by habit, I rolled my eyes when I heard that a game had been delayed, but the circumstance behind this delay is greatly different. Not only did Warner Bros. finish their movie on time before delaying it a full eight months, but EA also completed the tie-in game on schedule. Ironically, after developing the image of gaming’s most evil publisher, EA has largely stood alone in sticking to development schedules, and in the case of Dead Space, has even found itself ahead of schedule. I can honestly that I no long hesitate when I go to buy an EA-published game; that’s gotta count for something, right? Anyone else seeing EA in a different light recently?