SydLexia.com - The Forums :: View topic - I hope you like your gaming companies very BIG

Joined: Dec 06 2007 Location: Connecticut Posts: 11244

Syd Lexia wrote:

Nintendo must counter by purchasing Sega Sammy. And Namco Bandai. And Silicon Knights. And Metallica.

No, fuck Lars. Nintendo should know better than to associate with him.

Perhaps Kirk, James, and whoever Burton's/Newsted's replacement is would be welcome though.

Posted: Sep 23 2009 09:13 pm

Quote:

Microsoft May Purchase Electronic Arts

Scuttlebutt is going around Wall Street regarding a possible takeover of Electronic Arts at the hands of Microsoft. Talk of the potential buy has been dismissed as "unsubstantiated chatter" by Reuters, but rumors among traders have already served to drive up the stock of both companies. EA stock is up 5.24% to $19.36, while MS increased by 0.9% to $26. Some traders, at least, are banking on the possibility.

Whether purely the product of imagination or a legitimate piece of inside info, the rumor is plausible enough. The last year has seen a steady fall in videogame sales, the largest sales drop in nine years, leaving EA in a potentially weakened state. Such acquisitions have happened increasingly often, as in the case of "Activision Blizzard", and Zenimax/ID, and even EA's own attempts to acquire Take-Two.

Just how such a buy would change the face of the industry is difficult to comprehend. With EA dominating 20% game publishing market share and Microsoft 35% of hardware sales, the two combined would represent an absolute monolith. Or, at the very least, a chance to have a playable John Madden character for Halo 3: ODST's Firefight mode as DLC.

Update: According to seattlepi, Microsoft's corporate PR manager David Denis has said that "there is no truth to this rumor," and that "[Microsoft has] no plans to purchase EA."

Meanwhile, EA stock is now up 7% from yesterday.

http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3176152

Posted: Sep 23 2009 11:32 pm

Why the hell not, I guess. After all, Square and Enix merged together.

Posted: Sep 24 2009 12:49 am

XBOX EXCLUSIVITY.

That's why I hope this never happens ever.

Posted: Sep 24 2009 05:15 am

EA kinda sucks. Besides Madden, some other sports games, and a bunch of mediocre movie-based games , what do they actually make? An EA buyout by Microsoft would potentially crush Sony, due to Madden suddenly being an XBox exclusive. And I'm fine with that.

Posted: Sep 24 2009 10:52 am

eh, they used to have quality games during the 16 bit days, when they actually decided to take chances and make new IP's, but somehow they found the golden ticket in madden.

"hmmm, a quadrillion dollars by making the same game every year? or should we just risk our money and make something weird that might work or might not work?"

Posted: Sep 24 2009 01:40 pm

Whenever big merges happen it always looks to me like we are one bankruptcy claim away from being denied gaming for a year or three. Prob would never happen but who can say nowadays.

Posted: Sep 24 2009 02:06 pm

I wouldn't shed a tear for EA being purchased and chopped up, since that's what they did to so many other companies I adored:

Maxis (Sim City and Sim **** games)
Bullfrog (Syndacate, Populous, Dungeon Keeper)
Westwood Studios (Command & Conquer series, Dune series, Battletech RPGs)
Origin Systems (Wing Commander series, Ultima, and many other awesome RPGs)

Joined: Apr 09 2008 Location: Pennsylvania Posts: 3112

Syd Lexia wrote:

EA kinda sucks. Besides Madden, some other sports games, and a bunch of mediocre movie-based games , what do they actually make? An EA buyout by Microsoft would potentially crush Sony, due to Madden suddenly being an XBox exclusive. And I'm fine with that.

Actually, EA is being turned around a lot lately. The new management is taking over, and they've adopted new policies with how they treat their developers, so over the past year or so, they've been publishing a lot of games you'd never expect they would have two years ago, including Brutal Legend, Skate, Mirror's Edge, Dead Space, some Valve games, Rage, Rock Band, etc.

So, EA exclusivity WOULD leave a huge hole in a lot of system libraries (most notably with the sports games), which would either end in disaster for the other console makers, or open new space for other developers and publishers on the other platforms. Hell, that's even assuming that they DO sell to Microsoft, which seems very unlikely.

Posted: Sep 24 2009 09:23 pm

As I said, it would CRUSH Sony to have EA become Microsoft-exclusive. It would not hurt Nintendo anywhere near as much.

Sony's always like "Oh, look how awesome Madden looks on the PS3."

And MS would be like "Oh, look how nonexistent Madden looks on the PS3."

Also, note that EA does not own Rock Band. Rock Band is owned by Harmonix and MTV Games, both of whom are part of Viacom. EA is just the distributor. An EA acquisition is not as big as one might think. EA publishes and distributes a lot of games that they do not make. It is very profitable, but it also means that they are associated with a lot of properties that they don't actually own. An EA buyout would be bad insofar as it would leave a lot of small game studios without someone to publish/distribute their games, but some other company could easily fill that void.

Joined: Dec 06 2007 Location: Connecticut Posts: 11244

Microsoft would be foolish to make those games exclusive to the XBOX.

Here is what would be smart:

1. Define the programming language to use standards that the XBOX and DirectX can handle and allow Sony to easily interact with that language. This would allow games to be pushed to either system faster and at lower costs.

2. Create no more exclusives, instead create a campaign that games run better on XBOX/Windows.

Why would this work? Because games are where the money is. The systems themselves cost a shitload and the companies lose money on them. If Microsoft sold games for both platforms then they simply increase their potential income.

If Microsoft makes Madden an exclusive title, another football product will come out and it will be just as good for the PlayStation. Why cause conflict when you can make so much money by avoiding it.

Posted: Sep 25 2009 09:42 am

GPFontaine wrote:

If Microsoft makes Madden an exclusive title, another football product will come out and it will be just as good for the PlayStation. Why cause conflict when you can make so much money by avoiding it.

That would bring up a good question regarding the NFL exclusive license that EA has. If EA is owned by Microsoft, then Xbox would be the only system to have a licensed NFL game, unless by buying EA, it messes up the original contract. (Like a clause that says EA has to make a NFL game for X systems a year, or something.)

Posted: Sep 25 2009 10:53 am

those 2K games kicked madden's ass for a while

Posted: Sep 25 2009 05:41 pm

GPFontaine wrote:

If Microsoft makes Madden an exclusive title, another football product will come out and it will be just as good for the PlayStation. Why cause conflict when you can make so much money by avoiding it.

As someone pointed out, EA has an exclusive deal with the NFL.

The question here is this: Does MS want to make easy money, or do they want to be the most popular, successful console company in the world? Sometimes profit isn't as important as seeing your enemies crushed before you and hearing the lamentations of their women.

Nintendo could make a shitload of money by publishing their games on the 360 and PS3, but they choose not to do so. And they're still raking in ridiculous amounts of cash. Exclusive games increase your userbase. And when the PS3 price cut threatens to finally give the PS3 a chance at pulling held of the 360 in the console wars, Microsoft probably likes the idea of exclusive Madden.