EA on XBL? Maybe

pacuca · Post by **pacuca** » Fri Nov 14, 2003 7:20 pm

http://www.411mania.com/games/news/arti ... ws_id=4501
 
 Makes sense. I personally do not think EA was going to go another whole year without its titles being online with XBL. Their XBox customers are demanding it, so EA isn´t going to risk losing those customers. Can´t wait.
 
 Anyone want to predict what the first EA XBL title will be? My guess- MVP Baseball 2004.
 
 pacuca [ This message was edited by: pacuca on 14-11-2003 15:25 ]

pk500 · Post by **pk500** » Fri Nov 14, 2003 7:51 pm

My prediction: Won´t be announced until at least E3, if at all. The first EA Sports XBL titles will be NCAA Football 2005 and Madden 2005.
 
 But I´m even skeptical that will happen. EA and MS are at big-time loggerheads over this issue. Plus, EA´s customers continue to buy the company´s Xbox titles -- despite the lack of XBL support -- at a greater rate than XBL-enabled titles from Microsoft and other publishers.
 
 Until MS and other companies can outsell EA on the Xbox, I don´t see the incentive for EA to go XBL.
 
 I hope I´m wrong. But right now, I can only think of two EA titles that I´d like to play online: NCAA Football and NHL.
 
 Take care,
 PK

pk500 · Post by **pk500** » Fri Nov 14, 2003 7:58 pm

Oh, and one other thing: That story at 411mania.com was typical of gaming journalism: Totally distorted, totally incorrect.
 
 I checked the interview with Chip Lange at IGN.com that discusses this subject, and nowhere does he say EA definitely is coming to XBL. He said the company continues to talk with MS.
 
 But of course, the dweeb at 411mania.com took those negotiations to mean the deal was done.
 
 Absolute rubbish. Just like 95 percent of the so-called "gaming news" sites produce.
 
 Take care,
 PK

wco81 · Post by **wco81** » Fri Nov 14, 2003 8:44 pm

Sony and EA announced an "agreement" last March to have EA games be online-exclusive to the PS2 for one year.
 
 So it could be close for MVP but a lot of times, these baseball games come out in early March.
 
 But I agree with PK that if they´re going to announce anything, it´ll be around E3. And they would have to already be working on them in early spring even to show prototypes at E3. Or even if they weren´t going to show it at E3, they´d have to be working on them early next year to make the July and August releases of NCAA and Madden.

pacuca · Post by **pacuca** » Fri Nov 14, 2003 10:10 pm

Yeah, I know the article is not the best source of news, but I believe that EA is going to support XBL next season. If not, they probably won´t get onboard XBL, if at all, until the next generation of consoles.
 
 I hope they do get on XBL soon because the real winner will be us, the customers who want to play EA games on XBL.
 
 pacuca