EA/BioWare Deal Finalized, Nets EA Ten Franchises

Gamasutra notes that the announced deal, where Electronic Arts was to purchase BioWare/Pandemic, has now been formalized. This arrangement will fold ten new franchises into the EA family, from the just-released Mass Effect all the way back to BioWare's classic titles. "EA Games president Frank Gibeau will oversee both studios within his organization, and BioWare's Ray Muzyka and Greg Zeschuk have each been named as vice presidents of EA and co-general managers of BioWare. Similarly, Pandemic's Andrew Goldman and Josh Resnick have each been named vice presidents of EA and co-general managers of Pandemic, while Greg Borrud has been named vice president of EA and chief production officer of Pandemic Studios. "

Comments

The Collapse Of Microsoft's First Party Support

[Anonymous Coward]

Bungie - Was so unhappy working with Microsoft they forced them to let the company become independent and work on any platform they want
Bizarre - Ended their exclusive Xbox development when they went off to Activision
Bioware - Ended their exclusive Xbox development when they went off to EA

That pretty much just leaves Lionhead and Rare as Microsoft's first party Xbox developers. Rare has been a disaster for the money Microsoft paid to acquire the developer. Lionhead has been 'meh'. A decent developer that talks too much about grand plans that continually disappoint in their actual product.

With these rumors of Microsoft looking to license the Xbox to third party manufacturers you have to wonder if Microsoft is ready to turn their focus away from console hardware and back to Windows gaming.

Re:The Collapse Of Microsoft's First Party Support

[Anonymous Coward]

Right. I forgot this was Slashdot. I forgot that Microsoft was a total failure of a company. Has cheated to get where it is today, and has been dying for 10 years now, with each new product having fatal flaws that will kill the company.

Face it. So far Microsoft is in a solid second place, and thanks to the high attach rate and traditional style, probably number one as far as most 3rd party game companies are concerned.

Can Sony pull it together and do better? sure, it's possible, maybe even likely. Maybe Nintendo will start getting some serious 3rd party development and not the shovelware it seems to be getting.

Re:I see one plus to this deal

[LighterShadeOfBlack]

Come on EA, dip into that huge bank account you have and fully fund Baldur's Gate III! You mean Baldur's Gate 2009 (to be released Autumn 2008). Or as it's known internally 'BG2 with facial expressions'. And I've heard rumours of plans for a followup, known only by it's secret codename 'BG2 with facial expressions and realistic grass effects'

And of course there'll be no more text feedback to read in battles, it'll all be provided by commentary from Andy Gray and Martin Tyler (Americans can insert whoever commentates on whatever games EA whores over there).