EA, Eidos Have No Plans for Xbox Live

News for nerds writes "Eidos, maker of Tomb Raider, said it doesn't plan to make games for Xbox Live because Microsoft controls the system and manages subscriptions itself, leaving no incentive for a publisher to collaborate. Sony's approach is to sell just the equipment needed to connect to other's services, such as those run by game makers. Electronics Arts, which makes titles such as 2002 FIFA World Cup and NHL 2003 for the Xbox console, is also reluctant to join Microsoft's system, while supporting GameCube."

Comments

Distributors

[Loosewire]

Theyre the distributors of tomb raider - core design made it

Re:Sony turns out to be more expensive

[georgep77]

Actually if you read up on XBox-Live there may be a fee of $10/month once your first year is over. Also MS has never ruled out extra fees for future games. So basically there is no "designed in" cost savings over the PS2 online model.

http://xbox.ign.com/articles/361/361526p1.html

Extra fees are already being charged (will be charged upon release) of Phantasy Star Online for the XBox.

http://www.rpgfan.com/news/2002/1655.html

Cheers,
_GP_

Re:PS2 addapter good

[mdbales]

what is with the game cube, they don't even offer ethernet

they don't, huh?

Re:It's a catch-22...

[gid-goo]

EA might not be a great company to work for (I've heard they don't give royalties to employees) or whatever. But they have the #1 sports titles. Madden is an unstoppable sports behemoth right now (and has been for years). Sony hasn't been able to make a decent competitive football title since the ps1. Without EA Microsoft isn't going anywhere.

Re:EA can go screw

[Firehawke]

Well, I'm an old-timer for this sort of thing. I've been watching the console wars since the early 80s, and if there's anything I've learned, it's that the power of a console doesn't matter nearly as much as the software for it.

Time after time, weaker systems have won because the games were better. The Atari 2600 beat out Coleco and Intellivision. The NES beat out the SMS. The Super NES beat the Genesis except in sports games. PSX managed to beat Dreamcast.

As a gamer, I'm loath to trust a company with the track record of Microsoft. Sure, I like the idea of X-box Live-- a cheat-free online environment that the gaming companies are actually willing to support-- but there aren't THAT many killer games for it.

Your argument that the developers spend more time "trying to figure out how to get the PS2 running at all" is false-- for that to be right would mean they'd have to develop the versions simultaneously and that's almost NEVER true. Take a look at Splinter Cell; there'd been a considerable wait for the PS2 version to even start development and in the end it's nearly as good as the X-box version.

Re:EA can go screw

[ryants]

you end up spending 90% of your time working on PS2, as it's such an underwpowered, poorly designed piece of crap. It's a hella fun system with the best games, but writing code for it just sucks.

I code for the PS2, and I like it just fine. Linux toolchain, gdb, MIPS instructions that you can actually understand, ... what could be better?

The thing spends more time waiting on instruction cache stalls than executing code.

Then you have poorly written code. Try using the ICACHE performance counters sometime to find your bottlenecks and FIX THEM.

Re:Don't be so quick to say that

[RoLi]

Also remember that when the PS2 was released, developers everywhere raised an uproar about the pathetic libraries and documentation provided, hard to optimize architecture, etc.

Yes, that's the drawback of a truely new architecture.

You have higher initial costs (hw-development and sw-development including possible redesigns), but you save a lot in the long run. The XBox is the contrary: You have barely any development costs, but you pay a lot in the long run (mostly in terms of too expensive hardware).

But I tell you that: By now, Sony already paid all the architectural development already.

XBox is an off-the-shelf design and that is normally used for quick and dirty solutions and low numbers. Just face it: If you want to sell millions of units for half a decade and off-the-shelf design is just wrong and a stupid business decision.

And I've never said that Sony was a nice company.

Ignorant Gamecube bashing.. Lame.

[Viewsonic]

Out of all three systems, the one that consistantly has hits every month is the Gamecube. Nearly every magazines "Game of the Month" is a Gamecube title. Xbox has Halo, Splinter Cell, and Panzer Dragoon which are all good titles, but dont even come near the Zelda, Metroid, Mario, Animal Crossing, etc offerings on the Cube gameplay wise, and award wise. PS2 has Gran Turismo 3, Final Fantasy X, and a few other great games, but still, they all pale in comparison to a single Metroid game.

For the most part, Nintendo has been doing really well with its Cube console, a lot of the games are unique, and the ports it does get are usually filled with goodies and can connect to the GBA that everyone owns.

Also, SSX Trickey DID have the DVD extras on the Gamecube. There are NOT many multidisc games, in fact, I think there is only one. Leaving DVD out of the Cube was the best design ever, how many pirated Cube games do you see? Exactly.

You seem to like to smoke the crack, sir. Pass it over to me next.