Could EA be trying to convince Bioware Edmonton to ditch their new IP in favor of rescuing Mass Effe

Hah¬ EA. EA has been so evil that every decisions they make are now considered as somthing sinister by people. karma

Never. Everything is riding on their new IP while Mass Effect has become a rather toxic brand since ME3's ending controversy and Andromeda has done it no favors. I'm sure Mac and co are sad they have to stop making more of these games. There's always a chance they can return to it but I think part of the reason of the hiatus despite EA looking at where money goes is because BioWare absolutely can't keep up this 3-4 studio thing with so many huge multimillion projects at once, so my bet is that by putting a lid on the Mass Effect department for now and focusing on New IP and Dragon Age next they can improve their work elsewhere. New IP was just delayed and EA ambiguously said it was to improve the online, social aspect and they also mentioned the SWTOR team was building the online infrastructure for them (or helping), so chances are New IP is in the same state as this game was at some point. I don't even expect to see gameplay at E3 this year, because I think BioWare wants it to be as ready as possible before showing anything.

As for why Mass Effect may have been dropped in favor of Dragon Age, well... I think there's more professional interest from old-time BioWare fans, DA:I sold well and it earned GOTY so as far as Electronic "We-only-make-decisions-based-on-statistics" Arts are concerned Dragon Age is a safer bet for BioWare's future and their company's profit going forward. Unless Andrew Wilson understands the appeal of Mass Effect I have the idea that he won't like to see his BioWare subsidiary make another one while he's in charge, because he'll see it as shooting himself in the foot based on Andromeda's market performance.

Doubtful. The most likely reason Dylan was pushed back a year was to ensure that it's as polished as possible, especially since it's new IP. Since Battlefront 2 comes out in Nov. I suspect ME:A staff who worked on the main game were moved over for the final push of BattleFront.

I swear if there's none left by the time Thanksgiving comes around I'm going to hurt people. 

It's still far fetched, since it doesn't follow the corporate motto: Make money by any means possible. So yes, it's more than far fetched. It misses the mark by a million lightyears.

Had ME ever pulled CoD or Skyrim sales numbers, EA might be a lot more concerned about the franchise. But in that case, they probably never would have given it to Montreal in the first place.

I expect they're under a fair bit of pressure to make Dylan successful. IIRC, some other secret IP under development was cancelled a few years ago, and Dylan was born. It undoubtedly represents a pretty hefty investment, and it will still be awhile before it generates any revenue.

That said, I'm sure that Edmonton consults with Montreal to help move ME forward. They're working on patches and fixes, and I'd expect those along with some well-received DLCs could do a lot to help the brand.

So ditch a game that they've potentially already sunk quite a bit of money into to start on a new game? Basically, throw who knows how much money away to spend more money on something that can't be released for years.

You may think that they can easily go back to the old game after finishing the new one but technology moves forward so by the time they return to the new IP, it may have become outdated so they'll have to start over and spend more money to do so. Splitting the development team would just as bad a decision in a whole different way.

What you propose is politely and briefly put not a very business sound decision and I cannot see EA considering doing so.   

Wasn't that their MOBA attempt? Good thing they had the sense to kill that.

I don't think so. I believe Bioware once showed early footage of a multiplayer or four-player co-op game that they had in the works but the project was shut down as far as I can recall. Bioware is also handling Star Wars: The Old Republic so unless that's being shut down, I don't see EA deciding to set up a new MMO.

The new IP will probably be a singleplayer game with multiplayer that has a similar shop to the previous ones. That seems to have been profitable enough given the free DLC it recieved. 

 That's not how the Force works