Rumor: Microsoft wants..........EA
 

Yeah..

This is rumor status right now, but the talks are serious. I can't even begin to fathom how this would affect gaming for everyone. Nintendo would more or less shake it off as their success has never (or probably ever) relied on third party games. They certainly would have to bolster their first party lineup to compensate for the mammoth crater this would blow through it, and that's a good thing.

This probably would be the last nail in the coffin for Sony though. No EA? No Madden? Hell, no sports period?!? I don't know how such a purchase could clear anti-trust laws, but if it did, Sony's price cut could have come too late. Sure, the NFL could drop exclusivity, but then again, has that ever stopped EA from dominating? No EA is one of the things that killed Dreamcast.

This could mark the end of the console war...now and forever. That's a scary thought.

This would absolutely bury Sony. Like you said, Nintendo could shake this off, who really plays sports games on a Nintendo console? But Sony...damn. They'd be screwed.

I played a crapload of the NBA Street series on the GameCube.

And I agree on the Sony burial. As far as I practically know, Sony IS EA.

As far as I'm concerned EA, since the 90s, has represented everything that is evil and soulless in the video/PC gaming industry and can rot in hell.

Showing us just how little you really know, yet again.

If I was into sports games I'd probably worship them... but every truly creative, thriving property they've acquired they've managed to bury in record time without ever looking back.

You know that even Mario has sports games, right?

Well, they're more nostalgic than deep, but still.

It's true! I have an EA-developed Tetris game on my cell phone, and that series has never recovered from that travesty!


...

Oh wait....

Dead SPace was EA, and it was awesome. Wait...not 'was,' is.

Ultima. Wing Commander.

http://blog.mlive.com/annarbornews/2...arge_VIGIL.jpg

That's two. And who the **** cared about Ultima or Wing Commander (aside from Freddie Prince Jr.)?

You guys don't f*cking read the XBOX thread?! Screw you.

That's just the Origin side of things (and cumulatively comprise two series with about 25 games). Don't get me started on Westwood and all of its properties. Everything EA absorbed they famously bungle, destroy, and bury... over and over again, without fail.

They buried WC before that abomination of a film came out, that was only the final insult (though I can't pin that one on them, as they had nothing to do with it except peripherally). And are you kidding? WC3 was the top selling PC game of all time in its day (might even still be, unless you factor in stuff like MMOGs). Look it up. WC4 not far behind it. Some of Mark Hamill and Malcolm's McDowells best performances, I'd daresay, to say nothing of the completely immersive gameplay itself. And the WC fan community in the 90s would shame the TMNT fan community at any point in its sordid history... hundreds of rabid fans, dozens of message boards, E-mail lists, fanclubs, you name it.

And lots of people were into Ultima. It was (and has to be still, by default... what else has matched it since?) far and wide considered the greatest North American RPG series of all time... until EA Fed the pooch on IX, screwed Garriott, and buried it shortly thereafter. Ultima very literally wrote the book on video role-playing games.

Don't hate EA. Hate publishers in general. They're the necessary evil in this biz, and Activision is a HELL of a lot worse right now.

Hell, I didn't even think about FIFA. If Sony lost FIFA games in Europe combined with Madden in the West, you could just dig the grave now. I really hope this doesn't come to pass as I like a little competition in gaming, and this would basically monopolize the biz but good.

Eep. Big news if turns out to be real. I wonder if Microsoft would even bother hindering consoles like PC, Wii, DS and PSP tho if they acquired it. None of these are in direct competition with 360, so if I were them I would let those versions exist to keep the revenue stream healthy. It wouldn't make much sense to buy a massive company like that just to cut off 2/3 of its income.

ET...seriously. Just stop. You've already proven to us time and again that you don't know what you're talking about, you're not making things any better.

Seriously, Wing Commander and Ultima? Maybe that sh*t has some significance in the early 90's, but it disappeared for a reason, and it hasn't been brought back since for a reason. No one gives a sh*t. Like most Ninja Turtles fans, you're f*cking lost in 1992.

Both had their publicational heights in the mid to late 90s. But now we're splitting hairs.

Yes. EA.

Madden and other sports game rubbish (not passing judgment, just my own opinion) could be cranked out quickly and efficiently and relatively cheaply with small development teams... why continue to invest in games with larger teams and actual stories and creativity that take long to make and, in the end, don't make quite as much as Madden?

Yes. EA.

Well... OK, in fairness, EA did bring back WC a couple of years ago... as a 2D, 3rd person Pinball-like piece of crap for X-Box Live! Arcade. With no story or characters -- and by no story or characters, I literally mean no story or characters.

It's like EA wanted to make some kind of generic "Space Invaders" game for the X-Box Live! Arcade and then someone over there finally remembered, "Oh yeah! We have the rights to Wing Commander!" and literally just slapped the logo on there.

But I can quantify that a great deal of people do give a sh*t.

I would go so far as to bet a hefty wager that there are easily, easily more people that care about either franchise alone are more in number than the entire active fandom of the TMNT right now.

You won't get an argument from me about the "most Ninja Turtles fans," but now you're not even being reasonable.

Sony will certainly be dealt some heavy damage, but I don't think they will be buried. They have their own development team for sports games [their main problem is marketing them]. The only thing they'll really be hurting in is no NFL-licensed titles. Yes, Madden NFL is sadly the top sports franchise, but on the basketball side of things, the NBA 2k series has been eclipsing NBA Live.

Hockey fans with PS3s will get screwed though. They'll have the NHL 2k games, but they haven't been so great lately. Soccer fans with PS3s will just have to stick with the PES franchise.

On second thought, maybe this will be Sony's burial. They're really being limited here.