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."

Comments

Hailstorm recycled?

[Ratface]

And there we were wondering why Microsoft were so prepared to back down and close their Hailstorm division. Who wants to bet that a good deal of the technology they were researching there shows up in their future gaming plans?

Serious question

[jackal!]

(Mod up any good answer to this)

Is there any online games that are going to be MS only? I know PSO is coming to all platforms, and I doubt EQ (owned by Sony) will be on MS at all. Is there any killer online app for Xbox? I don't expect MS to launch this service without something special backing it up, but I haven't heard what that would be yet.

Re:Serious question

[jason99si]

Age of Empires II would be Microsoft's best chance at an online killer-app.

I've spent countless hours losing trebuchets to co-workers and friends.

EA is a big deal...

[ChiPHeaD23]

The fact that Sega and EA couldn't be friends is, IMO, one of the reasons the Dreamcast got killed. Don't underestimate the power of EA Sports's games (which are re-released with minor improvements every year, so sales for their "series" are always huge) and the multitude of developers that EA publishes for. This *could* mean trouble for M$. Sure, they're only mentioning online play but what's Slashdot without a little extrapolation?

Re:EA is a big deal...

[checkyoulater]

There were no less than four football titles for the Xbox last year.

That is fine for you Americans who happen to love a boring game such as NFL football, but will those games sell in the rest of the world, too?

If I recall the days of the Genesis, there were cricket games, rugby, soccer(football) and of course, hockey. All games that don't sell well in the United States. How many football games are needed?

EA isn't a saint

[derrickh]

EA is just as guilty of strong arming companies. Starting wayyy back with the Sega Genesis when they refused to pay lisence fees. A few years later they pretty much came out and said that they were going to kill the Dreamcast because Sega wouldn't meet thier demands. Now EA thinks it can make MS back down by saying "We arent gonna give you Madden 2003 online". Big deal. As if EA's evil servers are any better than Microsofts evil servers. This time, I'm on Microsoft's side.

D

actually..

[dmouritsendk]

No big loss.

eeh, EA is the worlds largest games publisher. Its actually the biggest fish you can lose as a gamehardware creator.

I agree that VisualConcepts are doing a GREAT job over at Sega Sports, ever since the Virtua Tennis on the dreamcast those guys have had nothing but my greatest respect. But, there are MUCH more to EA than EA Sports.

Im willing to bet gooood money that M$, is disliking the fact that they wont get no online sims.. just as an example :)

Re:Online Sports Games

[RexRuther]

Check out the latest version of Half-Life/Counter-strike. This has a spectator (HLTV) mode with very cool features. You can follow people around, see what they are seeing, look at a dynamic map of the arena, or just move your camera anywhere you like. They have used it to broadcast title matches to the internet and it appears to work well.

One of the best $30 I ever spent.

In Public

[theolein]

Sorry to post again just after my other post but I forgot to add what is perhaps the most striking thing about this story: The fact that EA publicly informed the press of Microsoft's attempt's to control the server side of the equation. While it obvious why Microsoft is doing this - a public posing platform for it's hailstorm and .Net strategy , which hasn't been so successful as of late - it is fairly rare that anyone who has business dealings with Microsoft has the courage to go public about it. A lot of companies have simply been too frightened of Microsoft retaliation. I know that EA is far less dependant on Microsoft than most software companies, which perhaps explains the move, but given the current wave of shedding light on Microsoft's practices, it seems that it is a good method to avoid Microsoft retaliating, since Microsoft has had an enormous amount of bad press lately, is publicity shy when it comes to having it's dealings exposed and knows full well that negative news events like this *do* affect both other game developers who feel strengthened in their dealings with MS and the general public who normally doesn't care much whether Microsoft is a monopoly or not but defintely does react when seeing negative news about a company in the mainstream media (i.e."I don't think I'll go for an XBox, no one makes games for it" sort of thing).

Media spin in action?

[2Flower]

I make a habit of reading Yahoo!'s Reuters provided news spools before hitting Slashdot each morning. I saw the same article there -- but there was no mention whatsoever of WHY Electronic Arts was turning down Microsoft.

Then here we have the NYT article and it's got not just one but multiple quotes slamming Microsoft's policy regarding online game servers. I wonder why one media source covered that angle and others didn't?

Of course, since I don't wanna scream conspiracy without screaming it from two directions, it could either be because Microsoft leaned on Rueters not to report that bit, or because NYT was digging for any dirt they could blow out of proportion in order to make it look like they were scooping their rivals. Who knows?

Either way, consolidating servers like Microsoft is proposing is the same My Way Or The Highway tactics that nearly crushed Nintendo in the last generation of the console wars. Guess they didn't learn.

The Lever of Riches

[rnd()]

It is interesting to see US an Europe diverging on their treatment of the Microsoft 'monopoly'. For anyone who is interested in learning more about the history of innovation and antitrust and patent law, there is an excellent book. It's called The Lever of Riches. It's a non-technical but fascinating look at the small decisions and factors that have made huge differences in the world as we know it today.

Heck, I might have to re-read it and review it for Slashdot b/c it seems oddly relevant to the Microsoft issues now.

In private (was: Re:In Public)

[sorbits]

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,

I'm afraid that I don't share your optimism. During the last year I recall Microsoft getting mention in the national news (on or publicly (non-commercially) funded TV-station) on 3 different occasions.

1. The launch of the Xbox (yes, that made it to the public news, even though PS2, N64 or similar never did) --- the launch of previous versions of Windows also amounted to news coverage.
2. when Bill testified, though only reporting that he said that if Windows were to be split up then it would take the development 10 years back, and he could not guarantee the stability --- this was in no way questioned by the media (even though they normally love to bring in experts to comment on stuff).
3. Microsoft bought a Danish software company (NaVision) for 10 billion KR (~= $1.2 billions) --- this was reported as a success story (everybody wants to be bought by Microsoft).

So I'm afraid that all this bad PR never reach the mainstream.

Some of my (technical) friends and fellow students (of computer science) are even pro Microsoft, and probably find me rather fanatic.