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

Re:Serious question

[mirko]

• minehunt
• solitaire
• freecell
• mshearts
• monster truck madness...

Bullying Tactics

[CaptainZapp]

Oh boy

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.

Silly Answer

[SEWilco]

You forgot one:

• Monopoly

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).

Re:In Public

[johnos]

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?

Princess Leia's rule of business #1

[Larne]

The more you tighten your grip, the more companies will slip through your fingers.

Looks like this is, finally, starting to happen to Microsoft.

Re:The *obvious* thing to do now is...

[x mani x]

What the hell kind of code is that?!?!? Has management or marketing started posting on slashdot???