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EA Close To Finally Announcing Xbox Live Support?
Thanks to IGN Xbox for its article discussing allegedly concrete plans for Electronic Arts to support Xbox Live later this year. According to the as yet unconfirmed article, EA "will announce its strategy at the annual Electronic Entertainment Exposition this May, but it may reveal plans earlier to investors this April 29, during its upcoming fiscal announcement." We previously reported on speculation that EA Sports titles would finally become Xbox online-playable, and IGN say that "Madden NFL 2005, NCAA College Football, NASCAR Thunder 2005, and NBA Live comprise the sports package for Xbox Live this fall." The non-sports titles seem a little more unclear, but it's claimed: "Battlefield: Modern Combat, EA's new GoldenEye game, and perhaps Burnout 3 are first in line for Xbox online compatibility."
Microsoft has a new "policy" that allows 3rd party groups to run their own Live! servers. The ESPN people have already talked openly about doing just that. I think that was part of the "Tsumani" update that they made to the Xbox Live network on 4/21.
They probably had quite a bit of back-end restructuring to do to get this implemented. I don't see them needing 24 hours of downtime JUST to add more statistic/teamplay features. The MSN messenger "plugin" hasn't even gone online yet.
I will say this though, many people swear by the NBA Live and Madden franchises. To them, anything else is do-do. I'm not much of a sports gamer, but I see this as only a good thing for both companies and all I can say is "It's about time."
Additionally, with MS taking a year off with their NBA and NFL titles, it looks like SOMEBODY is going to have free reign on XBox Live as far as Basket/Foootball is concerned next year. Looks like a concession to lure EA onto their network if I ever saw one.