Pure speculation on my part, but seeing as how Fantasy Flight own the rights to both the Star Wars miniatures and role playing game licenses, it seems obvious that they'll try to tie the two together in some way.

How likely do you think this is? Try to think about what you would do if you were a Fantasy Flight designer or executive, not whether or not you personally use or don't use miniatures. From a business stand-point, it would seem that with a strong miniatures line (which is what the new X-Wing game seems to be shaping up to be) it would be in the company's best interest to have some sort of cross-promotional sales going on between it and any future RPG releases.

Fantasy Flight has already done this will several of it's more popular brands, including most of the Terrinoth and Arkham Horror products currently avaliable. Both brands have featured games with components (usually "Hero" or "Character" cards and bits) that can be used across several different games sharing the same setting or theme.

You may think that since Fantasy Flight hasn't supported any of their RPGs with miniatures so far, why would they start now?

In truth, Anima: Beyond Fantasy, had a miniatures line in the form of Anima: Tactics (no longer supported).

Other than that, Grim never sold well enough to warrant a miniatures line, and all the Warhammer stuff (40K and Fantasy RP) is off limits due to Games Workshop's control over the miniatures side of the brand.

That being said. There has yet to be an announcement regarding any sort of ground battles miniatures game, though the X-Wing line may be expanded to include larger ships, and future expansions have already been promised and even posted already. It seems as if a "ground combat" line may be around the corner. Or maybe FF will stick with miniatures for vehicle/space combat and go the abstract route with the RPG, maybe including cardboard standees, ala Warhammer Fantasy RP, with whatever releases are planned.

What do y'all think about all of this?

No. I don't want to see this. Optional rules to use them… Ok. Forced rules no.

I know a lot of people were against the whole D&D4e feeling like it required miniatures to use, but I definitely enjoy playing with models and would be all for official SW ones :-D

Me, I'm hoping for a big 40k style game. Love to see… Hey, I can dream, can't I?

I think if they were made available, there would absolutely be a market for them. I do not think they should be mandatory, just as Lord Nikon pointed out, but I feel they would sell. I will probably use IA minis for my players.

RPG miniatures should be quite different then say, those made for X-wing. You can play a round of X-wing with a couple of minis per side. They can be expensive works of art and most of us can still afford enough to play. For an RPG, a proper collection would be much, much larger. You need a vast range of minis (various citizens, droids, Imperial troops, Rebel troops, on and on) and many of them you will need several of (Stormtroopers). So, to make this manageable for an RPG player, they must be cheap, not X-wing quality works of art.

Solution? Start spitting out sheets of the cardboard pawns that have been found in the RPG beginner games. Each sheet could have a theme: Citizens of the Empire, Imperial Forces, Rebel Forces, Freighter Crew, Droids, Small Creatures, Large Creatures, Starfighters, Freighters, Warships, Ground Vehicles, etc. I would prefer being able to go to the FFG website and purchase PoD sheets myself. So, I could order 2 Citizens of the Empire, 2 Imperial forces, 1 Freighter Crew, etc. One or two in a plastic sleeve hanging on a hook in a store would be nice also. I would prefer not having a boxed set of the entire collection because you would inevitably end up with too much of one thing and not enough of another.

My 2 cents...

I'm not for this either. Star Wars RPG is the ultimate narrative based RPG on the market IMO and anything that nudges it towards tactical play is a horrid idea. We have Imperial Assault, X-Wing, and Armada filling the itch for tabletop tactical games. Let's let the RPG remain an RPG.

Anyone wanting a miniature to represent them in abstract play for basic positioning can simply use a Star Wars action figure and there are plenty of options for that.