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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."
...for consumers, I mean.
...then again, I wouldn't exactly consider EA a _good_ developer.
The Xbox is the console in most need of some sort of killer-ap (if you'll be so kind as to excuse the dot-bomb era expression). Gamecube and Playstation both have great developers, good franchises, and a decent selection of games, and what's the Xbox have? Halo? Sure, it was a decent shooter by console standards. Phantasy Star Online? It's been delayed 5 consecutive times, beginning in November of last year, and is supposedly due out in April.
The problem is that if game developers are disuaded from producing games by Microsoft's control of Xbox, it's bad for the consumers; we won't get any decent games made for the system. But on the other hand, I actually like what Microsoft's done with Xbox Live; every game has voice, and they all seem to have a unified (if someone spartan) interface. From a gamer's prospective, Live is a good thing; certainly better than Sony and Nintendo's feeble online offerings.
Xbox Live has a ton of potential. It's a shame Microsoft can't strike a deal with some of these developers to bring their games to Live.
If they wanted, they could give Xbox-live subscriptions away for free. They have the funding to do it, and I seriously doubt anyone would pay for it without two of the biggest developers out there. So make it free (at least for a while) to encourage them to buy an X-box
To make laws that man cannot, and will not obey, serves to bring all law into contempt.
--E.C. Stanton
EA's sports titles are highly visible and successful; I think Microsoft was counting on leveraging those brands to make Xbox Live a success and recoup some cash. Losing the multi-player angle is a big loss to Microsoft.
Eidos isn't such a big loss, but it all adds to the FUD surrounding Xbox Live.
Which is ironic, really, considering the FUDee.
Please remain calm, there is no reason to pani... wait, where are you all going?
This was a known fact as soon as EA cancelled the Xbox version of Battlefield 1942. They didn't go on record saying it or anything, but EA had no other titles in the pipeline for Xbox live.
It's too bad too, as a developer I find that Xbox Live is by far and away the easiest online platform to develop for among any of the consoles.
As for Eidos... Tomb Raider Online never sounded very appealling anyways.
First off if either of these companies need incentives from Microsoft to make a game LIVE, then they have some serious problems !
As Publishers/Developers they have no upkeep costs on running any of the LIVE services, servers, or systems, how can they be complaining. Companies like Blizzard spend thousands if not millions to keep thier on-line services up and running, and all of these companies are getting the service for FREE while selling more copies becuse its LIVE enabled. For me thats an incentive enough, these companies are making a big mistake.
I saw an earlyer post that said something like "XBox LIVE = XBox Living Dead" don't really know what that means but i think XBox Live is one of the largest Gaming communities out there now, and the most advanced. Sony's way of dealing with their online play has been crappy and disapointing to say the least. So if that comment is stating that XBox live is a dead/dieing community i think your wrong, EA and Edios are going to see product sales plumit and companies like SEGA and Microsofts Sporting sales are going to sky rocket, just because of this one move.
my 2 cents but hey i think i have a damn good point !
- MOSKIE
- Sony know how to encourage developemnt of their
- online system - make it open!
Oh really?
XBOX Live has alot more games now and will have upwards of 10 times as many in the first year. The third party support for XBOX Live is actually alot better than what Sony has got with its open approach.
Overall, the support for XBOX Live is better than any competitor by quite a bit and when you consider the Playstation 2 has a much bigger userbase than the XBOX, that kind of says something.
Not to mention, even if these companies like EA and Eidos ain't supporting Microsofts service, they ain't making games for anyone else either. I mean, sure, EA don't put its games on XBOX Live, but besides a couple sports games none of its online stuff (Battlefield 1942, Sims Online, NFS) are on any other console either.
BTW - The Gamecube, last I checked, doesn't have any online games at all. I think it's cause it's marketed more to kids.
If GE entered the Console market would they do well ?
COMPLETELY OFFTOPIC, If GE entered the server market, what would happen?
You'd get, among other things, the GECOS (nee GCOS) field..
Just a touch of history for a saturday..
Good. I'm glad that someone fiinally told MS to "shove it!"
I was planning on seeing EA do this for a long time. Early reports showed how they just weren't content with the Live service. Of course, MS has never been one to compromise with its partners.
Ultimately, having EA just might have saved SEGA and the Dreamcast. People don't realize it, but EA is Square's publisher, and we all know how obsessed faboys are with Square.
You're right (I'm the AC above). There are more good games on PS2. That's the best argument that Sony fanboys can make right now.
/. moan when someone claims that the Xbox is "better" than the PS2 because of processor speed, saying that Mhz don't tell the whole story. You're right. Clock for clock, the P3 in the Xbox puts the EE to shame.
As for why -- there are several reasons. First is that Sony had a significant head start with the PS2, so everybody jumped on the bandwagon and started making games. That much lead time meant lots of games, which meant more PS2 sales, which meant more games, etc...
Cut to today -- It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that most games are being released for at least two platforms, if not three. From a publishers point of view, asking a developer to do multiple versions generally means an incremental cost for a much larger return. So it's usually worth it. But honestly, when a publisher says "make this game for GCN/PS2/Xbox", 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. The thing spends more time waiting on instruction cache stalls than executing code. So hardly anyone ever gets around to tapping the full power of the Xbox, they have to spend too much time figuring out how to get the PS2 running at all.
I may sound bitter, but this really is how it works. People on
So, Xbox mostly gets ports and games which are also coming out for other platforms (there isn't enough install base to usually warrant an exclusive version) and people really don't get to spend time on Xbox "features" these days. I can only hope that changes in the future, because there really is a fountain of potential in that big black box.
As a developer the PS2 blows the XBox out of the water because I have over 50 MILLION customers to sell to.
That being said, I agree that EA and online gaming is like oil and water. They just don't seem to get it. THey have amazing franchises that sell like mad. But they can't seem to let a developer have enough freedom to build a good online game.
More than 50 Xbox Live-enabled games are scheduled to launch in 2003 and beyond, including Star Wars: Galaxies, Counter-Strike, Midnight Club 2, MotoGP: Ultimate Racing Technology 2, Halo 2 and Project Gotham Racing 2. More than 60 game publishers are currently working on Xbox Live-enabled games.
http://www.teamxbox.com/news.php?id=4197
You are correct. Certain games that require more resources (eg: MMORPG's) would cost more, but your typical FPS/Racer/etc. type games will probably never incur an extra cost. Furthermore, the XBox live system is still more convenient because you are still logging in to one system with a unified interface accross games, and a unified billing process to make it very easy to manage. I don't want seperate monthly bills from EA, Sony, Capcom, etc.
There is no longer anything that can be done with computers that is nontrivial and clearly legal. -- Paul Phillips
Unless you count the expense of the Hard Drive and the Broadband adapter... both which are impossible to get for the PS2 (the hard drive is not even out in the US and probably never will be)... that means EA and all PS2 only developers are coding features that only a sliver of the market will use.
... "Hey Mom and Dad, can I have $150+ for an addition to my $200 PS2?" or "Hey Mom & Dad, can I get $10/month to play games online? ... the first year is free."
On the Xbox, developers know the consumer has an ethernet card and a harddrive already, so they feel more comfortable coding features that will make use of those even though the consumer might not have XBox live.
Besides, what do you think a kid is more likely to want to say
If I had a gaming company with the resources of EA, and I have had the opportunity to play Mech Assault or Unreal Championship on Live, I would be losing sleep until I could cash out on it. Sure, Microsoft controls it, but they are doing a hell of a job doing that.
Live is more addictive than crack. A $50 game and a $50/yr subscription can keep a guy totally hooked for months. Dangle the carrot about posting extra content every X months and they will stick around even longer. I got my Xbox in October 2002 and got Live a few weeks after and I was so busy getting my ass kicked on Mech Assault that I did not even notice Microsoft had posted two new mechs and two new maps. Plus the promise for more. And today I just found out that Splinter Cell, a game that only has single-user mode, has a new module available thru Live.
EA needs to port the Command and Conquer franchise to Xbox and use Live to allow network games and to post extra maps. That will be a good enough experiment to see if it is worth it to them to spend more in the platform. Microsoft went thru the trouble of creating a solid networking arrangement and online community, so the only thing these people have to do is sell the damn games.
I switched to mac OS X last year, which is why I got the Xbox. One of my requisites for buying Xbox games is that they have to be Live enabled. The only game that I currently own that does not have Live is Morrowind, and I am hoping that by the time Bethesda Softworks releases a followup it has some Live functionality.
Pedro
----
The Insomniac Coder
The reason EA isn't "content with the Live service" is that they know their own service wouldn't offer anything worthy of paying extra for over and above the cost of Xbox Live. How much extra functionality do PS2 Madden players get over Xbox NFL 2k3 players?
If EA thinks that they're going to make truckloads of money by charging extra for their matchmaking services on the PS2 (which is the only logical reason not to do Xbox Live games besides the fact that dial-up is unavailable on XBL), more power to them. I think they're probably wrong, but they're welcome to try.
They really do have several hits a month. Take the Gamecube library. Throw out anything released on another console. Tends to be that the XBox has the best release if it's multi-console (there are exceptions, MGS2: Substance for example), but it's mostly true. This leaves you with what, 10-15 solid titles? Okay, toss out anything not a remake of an N64 game (or practically a remake). No more Rogue Leader, Wave Race, Mario, etc. So you're left with primarily Nintendo franchise games, which are continuations of older game in some way regardless (with only a few exceptions). SNES is probably my all time favorite system, so I more than recognize that. Nintendo games are Nintendo games. No friggin' DUH!. It doesn't change that Mario Kart has not changed much from when I played it on SNES. Is it any less a solid game? No...but it's also not worth rebuying just to get it slightly prettified from the N64 version. I had a Gamecube (got it launch day, actually). I wound up trading it in because I looked down the release list and couldn't see games that I cared about for at least another year. Why? Because it's just that. Waiting for Nintendo remakes of games you liked before. What you get with other consoles is variety and more releases. Hence while Nintendo might release *one* A-plus title for their console this month (Zelda this month), PS2 or XBox get several. That's not to say that the Nintendo games aren't any good, just that they're few and far between. So in the same time period that the Gamecube gets, say, Metroid...the XBox gets Panzer Dragoon, Splinter Cell, Mechassault, and more. The PS2 gets Wild Arms 3, GTA3: Vice City, Kingdom Hearts, etc. You get multiple great games in different genres. Like you mentioned for your PS2's RPG wave. Will any of those games get to the GC? Didn't think so. Yet you have *four* in the span of a couple months. That's why I can't see why people insist on classifying the Gamecube as the "gamers system". I can see why you'd classify the Dreamcast as such, or the XBox even. Why? Because of the exact things you brought up. Can you name the top 10 XBox games? No. Why? Not because none of them are any good, but because 1.) Variety and 2.) Hardcore games. Stuff like Jet Set Radio on Dreamcast or Panzer Dragoon on the XBox. Not ones that everyone lines up for, but excellent titles nonetheless. The Dreamcast's fighter lineup also would dictate that too. To me, being a hardcore gamer (or movie watcher, anime watcher, etc) usually involves games, movies, etc that not everyone knows about. Nintendo's big titles haven't changed much from the days of the SNES. Everyone knows them. The fact that they're predominantly All Ages doesn't make them obscure. Playing them despite that doesn't make one a "true gamer" in my eyes either. Nintendo games sell like hotcakes, because they *are* good. They're also no less mainstream than Tony Hawk or Metal Gear games. Perhaps more recognized. To me a "true gamer" wouldn't need to rely on previous games in a series to recognize a good game. Or would perhaps be more interested in playing Guilty Gear XX than Smash Brother's Melee (after having played Super Smath Bros.). Perhaps saying that Nintendo's games shouldn't be ignored as "kids stuff" or that the GC shouldn't be ignored as a platform would be more accurate. There are solid games on it. To ignore them because they're cartoony would be foolish. As for piracy, well, again. No friggin' DUH! But there have always been ways around things like that. Excepting the first series of PSXs (and even then it was a trick) people have needed mod chips. With the Dreamcast you had to be able to remove content. Yeah, Nintendo is the hardest to copy still...but at what cost? Are they now allowing companies like EA to have their own manufacturing plants like Sony does? Are game prices down now that it costs them pennies to make them? Yay Nintendo for stopping the pirates (or so we think...could be that if one has a DVD press, a modchip isn't needed). Last I checked the GC was coming in third in most places around the globe. Perhap
Think about it - EA has always liked being king-maker. They were able to help kill Dreamcast by not supporting it - partly because they didn't get the terms they felt they deserved from Sega. EA's problem here is that MS isn't Sega... $42B in the bank goes a long way to giving breathing room. Meanwhile Xbox Live has proven to be a huge success, racking up significant numbers.
EA is now faced with multiple challenges:
* Time isn't in EA's favor here. The more time that passes, the more titles MS can get to fill out weak areas in their portfolio that EA might have filled.
* They have a $600M sinkhole called EA.com that they need to somehow leverage. This has been such a fiasco that they're pulling it back into the fold so they don't need to display the losses it's incurring. MS doesn't need those servers - never has, never will. EA needs to figure out a way to save face and "leverage" their investment.
* Live has proven incredibly popular, and numbers keep climbing. They just announced 350k users, and I wouldn't be surprised to see them break half a million by E3, and well over a million by the end of the year. Don't believe me? Just plot their growth, and keep in mind that we're in the slowest part of the season now - Holiday is coming.
With those numbers, EA cannot afford to ignore the audience - that's $s on the hoof that their stockholders want.
* Two words: Sims Online. Remember that EA.com sinkhole?
Yeah, I know I'll be flamed as a MS apologist or fanboy or something... but use your minds a little. There are very good reasons that EA is struggling to do Live - reasons the rest of the industry don't have. So what about Eidos, you ask... well, what about it? Ever think that Sony might not just be sleeping quietly, and may just perhaps be working (read: spending) to lock down partners?
Enough... just wanted to throw out some things for you all to chew on. Somehow I can already tell the response is going to be yet another "MS/Xbox/Xbox Live" is dead flame.
AV