So whats the deal with Ea Sports and Xbox live? (1 Viewer)

[Bruce Berti]

So if adding live to the code of a game is such a huge, money gulping ordeal, than why does Sega have such an easy time doing it? Do they have deeper pockets?
I wish I knew the stats on how many xbox owners actually also own live? 10%? 20%? Maybe EA looks at those percentages and will wait to see those hit a magic number in order to make it worth it for them. Of course that would create a double edged sword of people that wouldnt purchase "Live" until there is more software behind it. Just a thought.

 

[BrianB]

So if adding live to the code of a game is such a huge, money gulping ordeal, than why does Sega have such an easy time doing it? Do they have deeper pockets?

Sigh. I didn't say it was a huge money gulping ordeal. I said it's something that needs to be planned and budgeted for in both finance & manhours.

As for Sega having deeper pockets... Sega just announced a reduction in their yearly forecast to a profit of under $5 million. EA made a profit of $250 million in the last quarter. I think that's a fair indication of which company has a handle on their financial wellbeing. EA have enough cash to throw at anything they chose. It's just a matter of whether it adds enough value for shareholders. Right now, they've decided Live support doesn't.

It's been suggested that EA weren't happy with not having direct access to XBoxLive consumer information or full control over servers/access etc. It's also been suggested that EA weren't happy with the financial setup of the XBL "partnership" program.

And before someone rants & raves at me, I'm not apologising or praising EA's behaviour. I'm simply trying to present some of the reasoning why decisions like these get made.

 

[Bruce Berti]

Sigh.
Pardon me BrianB. I was refering to this posting.

Now about supporting Live.....if you knew how much money and how difficult it was to get Live running in a title you'd see why so many games that "should" support it don't.

 

[BrianB]

Fair enough. A quote to what you're replying to goes a long way sometimes.

 

[Doug Schiller]

Brian,
I view Inside Drive the same way as NFL Fever.
I guess Microsoft saw fit to assign the resources to Fever. Inside Drive and Sega NBA's game both had versions last year.
To me, there is no excuse except MS was cutting their losses knowing they couldn't compete with the big two anyway. The All Star game just passed and ID2K3 is already down to $25.

Writing net code is not some new science. If anything, MS has it easier because everything goes through their servers.

At least they could do was offer roster updates via Live(which is all I use NBA2k3 Live for).

Doug

 

[Damien]

at first it irritated me, but now there is nothing we can do about it. EA games imo are years inferior to sega sports imo anyways so I'm not affected too much now. But if there is an EA game I happen to like, it is annoying buying the xbox version and having graphics of a ps2 game. Ea also does little things like alter the controls on the xbox verisons of games, sometimes butchering them. But it was a good step when ea included custom soundtrack in thunder. You guys have to realize without sony ea may not be where they are today so they may always be partial to them, even going as far as making them look better then sony's competition.

 

[Dean DeMass]

You guys have to realize without Sony ea may not be where they are today so they may always be partial to them, even going as far as making them look better then Sony's competition.

I would even say, "Without SEGA, EA wouldn't be where they are today."

It was the SEGA Genesis that paved the way for EA. The Madden series, NHL series, PGA Golf, Road Rash, NBA Live (before Live Bulls vs. Laker, Bulls vs. Blazers, and Lakers vs. Celtics), Tony Larussa Baseball. IMHO, the SEGA Genesis was what got EA to be such a heavyweight. Sony just added another championship belt to their collection.

-Dean-

 

[Chad Ellinger]

EA has publicly stated that the reason they are not currently supporting Live is because of the way Microsoft has designed the Live infrastructure. Microsoft's insistance on having a single, managed entry point for all Live software connections has its upsides and downsides. With all online customers and connections routed through Microsoft, its much easier to monitor hackers and cheaters across different types of software as well as provide a common user experience across software for the gamer. But some companies don't like this added level of control, and EA is one of them. EA supports Sony because Sony lets EA do what they want with the online connection.

If there are two sure things you can say about EA, it's that they're stubborn and arrogant. But when you're the number one third-party software publisher, I guess you can afford to be. If EA starts to support Live, it will be a huge win for Microsoft, and I don't doubt that Microsoft is eager to work something out and satisfy EA's concerns.

 

[JamesH]

BrianB, posts that I've made in the past indicating that I've never really thought EA was great "give you the impression" that I'm now concerned about their Xbox live support?

I guess you had some free time to kill scrounging through old posts, but not quite enough time to find some quotes that don't directly contradict the point you were trying to make.

I guess all I can really do now is sit at home and pray to the gods of gaming that EA will condescend to give us unworthy gamers XBL support in X-Squad 2.

 

[Travis Olson]

I've pretty much given up any hope for EA titles on the Xbox and when I think about it, it's not really a big deal. I mean sure, I've always felt that the Madden franchise has been the best football seres, but with Fever and the 2K series on Xbox, three games competing for your Live playing time is just too much. And actually I think the 2K series is starting to eclipse them all.

I was down right pissed went BF1942 got canceled, but then realized it might not have been all the good on Live anyway. Chances are it would have been lagged all to hell like the rest the FPSs and their wouldn't have been near as many dedicated servers as there are on the PC. It still would have been nice to control the vehicles with a controller though.

One thing I'm kind of wondering about though. Why doesn't the video game conglomerate that is EA come out with their own console? Lord knows they have the money for it. I suppose the market is too stretched as it is.

 

[Bruce Berti]

EA has publicly stated that the reason they are not currently supporting Live is because of the way Microsoft has designed the Live infrastructure

Thank you Chad for finally the definitive answer I was looking for.

 

[BrianB]

BrianB, posts that I've made in the past indicating that I've never really thought EA was great "give you the impression" that I'm now concerned about their Xbox live support?

You're the one who ranted & raved about boycotting EA, not me.