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EA Cites MS Bullying, Says No Xbox Online Games
beggs writes: "It appears that Electronic Arts will not have any games for the new Xbox online service Microsoft is rolling out this week. In this article over at the Times, people close to the negotiations for the service say that Microsoft was "trying to force software publishers to offer their online games on data-serving computers controlled by Microsoft, a move that could potentially give Microsoft access to information about customers." In the end EA said it will work with Sony and the PS2 online service."
Don't let anyone get between you and your customers. Microsoft and EA both know this.
It seems to me like everytime a major game company gets pissed off with their platform manufacturer they go to sony.
The good folks in Redmond just don't see, that you can apply bullying tactics only where you have a monoploy. They definitely don't have one in the console market (yet) and they desperately need partners here to ever be successful.
The problem nowadays is probably that Microsoft id a wholly untrustworthy company to partner with. Just ask all the companies that received the kiss of death.
ich bin der musikant
mit taschenrechner in der hand
kraftwerk
Uh, don't all the geeks who would play these already have PCs? Why would they need an Xbox? And if you think playing an FPS without a mouse is hard, try playing an RTS like AoE without one.
It's this kind of thinking on the part of MS management and Xbox advocates that will kill the system. Yes, Xbox is easy to port PC games from. However, those same PC games were not designed for a console. They were not designed for a console controller, and they were not designed for TV screen resolutions. Yet by most accounts, they will make up the bulk of the Xbox library. Yes, console gamers will love getting PC games they've always wanted to play but could not afford a PC to do so. But they will hate the poor gaming experience of playing them on a platform not suited for them.
I've built up so much character I have an alter-ego
The issue isn't who server's better than who's. EA doesn't want their customer's data, and their server code running on a server that Microsoft has access to.
-Bucky
Of course, with all the PK (player killers) in online FPS, you'd have a very tough ride.
Let's say a football game: the quarterback chooses the play (is he alone to choose, or the rest of the team can have an input too?), everybody lines up... and before the play is started, that moron on the left gets another penalty for encroachment, doubled by a major fault on the QB. Sure you can kick him out, but the damage's still done.
Also, seems very fun to play as an offensive guard...
Another example, featuring "real" football (soccer): the PK gets to control a very good defenseman. He tackles by behind a few times (maybe injuring an opposing player in the process), and the AI referee finally redcards the player. PK gone, but he leaves his team 10 to 11!
Again, very fun it is to control a player not part of the action... Who to be goalie wants and the game watch from 100 yards away? (bad attempt at Yoda speak)
At least in real sports, you have some practices between the games, so there's no incentive for a moron to act funny in games, as he has to act correctly in practices. Or if he does act funny in games, at least you can kick him (for real)...
and Sega's sports games... absolutely KILL EA's sports series.
While you may believe this, I believe this is actually what killed the Dreamcast. People have grown up with EA's sports title. NHL Hockey and Madden Football are probably the two most notables. I know quite a few people that were getting Madden when they first got their PS2 and Game Cube. If the online versions start to take off (and they most likely will), coupled with the lack of triple-A titles for the XBox, these could be the key ingredients in the death of the Microsoft console business.
The irony with Microsoft is that if they were less amenable to dirty tricks and actually showed some respect towards partners and customers they would be a much more popular company and possibly would not even be in court now.
On the other hand they would probably never have become the huge monopoly that they are if they didn't resort to dirty tricks.
This control freak syndrome exhibited by Microsoft in the EA story is so typical of Microsoft it seems not even worth mentioning or replying to. Although EA is no angel, it does give one a sort of evil satisfaction somewhere that Microsoft doesn't always win in their Everquest(;)) to win domination of the world.
In the mean time, enjoy your black and white world.
I'd say it was because the NY Times frequently has well written, informative takes on the story, and the subscriptions costs you.... nothing.
My Journal
That Microsoft is still trying to bully people, when they're smack dab in the middle of an anti-trust case?
And beyond that, they're attempting to brow beat one of the biggest names in computer games. It's just assinine to do that. They're the last people on earth that they should be attempting to "strong arm." These are the people you PARTNER with to see your game platform thrive.
- Sighuh?
EA is to games what MS is to operating systems. Most are crap, you have a new version every year (that looks just like last year's, with slightly differennt menus), but they control the market. Like MS, they buy out the competition just to kill them (ex., Origin, Bullfrog, etc.) and release their products based on commercial reasons, whether the software is finished or not.
In other words, they could be long lost brothers, or perhaps clones that grew up in different towns.
That said, this is a major blow for MS. EA controls a lot of games and a lot of different studios, and the X-Box's problem is precisely the lack of software. This may force MS to "speed up" the development of their games, possibly falling into the same traps as EA often does (buggy, unbalanced, unfinished games). And if PC gamers are fairly forgiving of that, console games expect the games to work right the first time.
This could be an opportunity for Infogrames, but I don't think they get along with MS very well, either (does anyone?).
RMN
~~~
A company shows some integrity by trying to protect it's customers and you ask "why should they care"? The appropriate response should be "thank you!". We complain every day about companies that don't respect their customers, and run said companies with apparent abandon, only eyeing the almighty dollar as the goal. That's contagious and habit forming. The next concession to the companies integrity is that much easier and the customer is the one that ultimately pays the price. It's decisions like this one by Sony that move to gain the respect of their customers. That's the best business move you can make, and will garner more of that dollar goal in the long term from those customers.
I am soooo sick and tired of hearing /. people bitch about the NYTimes registration.
1) ITS FREE
2) No one said you had to give them your real name/phone/email/ss#/mothers maiden name/CC#
3) There's numerous username/pass combos floating around. Someone once said slashdot/slashdot worked there.
The NYT is a fine, reputable source for an article like this. Better than, say, ZDNet.
siri
I can feel the karma burn coming on, but I don't care. While I have dutifully read through all the posts, no one seems to have truly pointed out why MS and EA would be in disagreement on this issue. No, it's not "obvious" that MS is just doing this to plug Hailstorm and My Services - I think MS got a pretty clear message that companies are not interested in storing their private data on MS's servers given their track record on security.
However, for anyone that has followed MS's Xbox online vision, the reason why they want everyone on the same servers is clear. One of the biggest selling points of the service (since getting ahead in a highly competitive field like games is all about differentiation) is that users will be able to switch between games on the fly if they already own those games. So I'm playing Halo, someone on my buddy list signs on and wants to play Tony Hawk, and I can get notified of it while playing Halo.
While I can see that scheme happening with servers being hosted by different companies simply by using a common protocol of some sort, I would think that this would be very difficult to implement when you're talking about many vendors and many hosting facilities. I think MS wants to really control the positive user experience on the Xbox and they know that if EA's servers suck, people (including most of us on here) are going to blame MS, not the actual game vendor.
A secondary reason is combined billing. I'm not sure if I'm in the minority, but I've never paid for an online game, I think it's a waste of money. If I already paid $50 for a game, I don't want to pay $10 each month to keep playing it. Diablo, etc. which were playable online for free were always a much better choice for me. Yet I'm considering Xbox Live (online service) when it gets started. Why? B/c I think this sounds like a better deal, where I'm going to be able to pay a flat fee for multiple games that I can play online, instead of $10/month to this company, $15 to another, and so on. Now sure that means that my billing information belongs to one place, MS, and that will potentially worry me. But I think I'd rather have one company to worry about, once again, than 5 different ones all having my credit card number. But that's just me.
EA might not be happy with that idea, and wants to get its own monthly fee, but of course publicly they're going to say that they're just out to protect their customer's data. In reality, it's just business I think, let's not jus take sides automatically.
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Dam it... I'm tired of over priced video games and the war that wages behind them. Why doesn't someone make an open source console??? Then MS can go F then selves
because unlike software, it takes lots of money to do such a thing, and there is no incentive when your main goal is to make money..
This is so bang on, but there are wider implications. In the computer business, we have come to believe that MS is invulnerable. Well, people outside the computer industry said MS would have their hands full in the console market. That it wasn't as easy as it looked. That MS had never dealt with competitors like Sony and Nintendo. Companies that had long ago figured out how to get rich in the razor sharp consumer electronics market. Some said that MS had no understanding of retail, where Sony rules supreme. I think many of us wanted to believe these things, but we were not hopeful, because MS was invulnerable.
Guess what? MS is taking a corporate drubbing the likes of which happen once or twice in a generation. Everything the nay sayers said proved correct, and more. This week, for example, they have been thourougly humiliated by both Sony and EA. The impending price cut for the Xbox has been in the computer industry news for several weeks. The Register predicted a North American price drop when MS started discounting in Europe. In typical MS fashion, they failed to see a downside to this chatter, and sort of pre-announced the announcement for next week's E3. Sony trumped them with an impressive speed and boldness. The mass media picked up the Sony price cut as a leading item, and covered the MS price cut as a me-too move. Ouch.
Now, we have EA going public with an announcement that seems to have humiliation as its sole purpose. MS looks arrogant, underhanded (like we didn't know), but most importantly, inept. Inept,Ineffective, incompetent, inferior. Maybe EA is not the first company to publicly tell MS to fuck off, but I can't remember anyone else doing it. So it can be done.
The last six weeks have been a total disaster for MS. Dropping Hailstorm, because nobody wanted to play ball with them. Gates admitting in the trial that a modular windows was possible. Jones admitting in the trial that MS intended to make sure competitor's desktop icons would be nothing more than desktop icons. The anemic Japanese Xbox launch. The Xbox price cut in Europe. The widespread media coverage of Sun's StarOffice launch. David Villanueva Nuñez' brilliant Anti-FUD letter. The publicising of the Softimage piracy conviction. The pay-up-or-else dictats to the schools. The desperate demand that educational institutions have to licesnse Windows for people that don't even use computers. The donated PCs "gotta have windows" debacle. The pointed questions about MS' CIFS license, and the recent assertion that at least one of their two patents is unenforceble. The hapless witnesses at the trial, like Jerry "with friends like this" Sanders. Gateway's willingness to testify against them. The revelation that 1/3 of MS customers have taken no action on the new licensing scheme. The continuing, embarrasing security and virus problems (weekly MSIE uber-patch available now). The Lindows case and the possible loss of the Windows trademark. The delightful (well for me anyway) realization that MS can't afford to drop Apple support. Oh, and Apple's creation of the first sexy server.
These are all stories covered here or at the Reg. Even for MS, which has reliably averaged one PR disaster per week for the last year at least, this is bad. I think the mortal blow is ironically going to be none of Microsoft's fault. The California/Oracle deal will have massive ramifications for all public software contracts. Got Open?
The real story is that MS wants to charge a fixed fee to customers, $10/month for access to all the online games. EA on the other hand wants to charge a monthly fee per game and they also want to have the users use there own online services. So no thanks, I've been boycotting EA since March. I bought the NHL 2002 last october, and guess what? There online service hardly ever works. It's slow, it crashes and when you do get in, you won't find many people to play with because they have already given up on it. I've been able to play like 4 matches online since october. You get the idea.
And there support, oh boy don't get me started on that one.
Oh, and Apple's creation of the first sexy server.
Silicon Graphics did that a decade or more ago. Short memories...