Interesting console news from EA

[jrutz]

Being a stockholder of EA, I recieved their annual report in the mail this week. Normally these things aren't too interesting but there were some parts worth mentioning:

* In terms of console sales, PS2 accounted for 37% of EA sales; Xbox 9%, Gamecube 7%
* There was mention of the lack of support for Xbox Live, saying right now it is undetermined if they will support it in the future. Their reason was they didn't think adding support would increase sales enough to make up for the added development.

That's about it, except the latest news from today's newswire (http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/030709/95221_1.html) which states Need for Speed: Underground, which was originally slated for 2004, will be released this fall.

Jeremy

[Groucho]

Originally posted by jrutz
* In terms of console sales, PS2 accounted for 37% of EA sales; Xbox 9%, Gamecube 7%Where's the rest (47%) of the sales going?

Only 7% for Gamecube. Seems to me that Nintendo is going the way of Sega.

[madcougar]

Originally posted by Groucho
Only 7% for Gamecube. Seems to me that Nintendo is going the way of Sega.

They are!?! What other financial business savy do you have to share with us Mr. Groucho?!? Do you think I should invest in Enron?!? I mean you seem to have all the answers.

In case you didn't realize it, I was being sarcastic

[Draven]

Originally posted by madcougar
In case you didn't realize it, I was being sarcastic

I think he was too :)

I read a really interesting article about Xbox Live/EA stuff in the latest XBN (I have no idea why this magazine shows up at my doorstep either.)

Basically it said that Microsoft wasn't willing to share any of the subscription fee revenue with EA. Sony was willing to let EA deal with all of the revenue. So from a business standpoint, EA hasn't wanted to commit to Xbox live, since there is NO incentive for them to do so. Which is probably true, since I think EA sports games will sell regardless of Xbox live content.

[Trigger]

The unaccounted for percentage would be mostly PC games and "other"...

EA announced they weren't gonna support Xbox Live at E3... not really "breaking news" but I hadn't seen the percentage breakdown - interesting.

[Groucho]

Originally posted by Trigger
The unaccounted for percentage would be mostly PC games and "other"...
But I thought PC gaming was far less popular than console gaming...this seems to suggest otherwise?

I guess "Other" would be GBA games and toys.

[jrutz]

Originally posted by Groucho
Where's the rest (47%) of the sales going?

Only 7% for Gamecube. Seems to me that Nintendo is going the way of Sega.

Well, I would agree the Gamecube seems to be going the way of the Dreamcast. Losing 3rd party support for one. The other seems to be the glut of clearance titles I haven't seen since the days of the DC (which was awesome, BTW). It seems a Gamecube title has a shelf life of about four weeks, after which it is severely discounted.

I don't have it in front of me but the rest is most likely PC software sales, since THQ handles all EA properties for the GBA. Makes sense when you have the biggest selling game of all time in your PC portfolio (Sims).

Jeremy

[Trigger]

Yeah - stick a fork in PC gaming - it's done - nobody plays PC games anymore. PC gaming is gonna go the way of Dreamcast.

[Captain Harlock]

Originally posted by Groucho
Where's the rest (47%) of the sales going?

I imagine it's split between the GameBoy Advance and PC with a few percentage points still going to the PS1 even. EA does makes alot of PC titles. I picked up Freedom Force this week ( on the recomendation from a few DVDtalkers) and that was an EA title. So is Shogun Total War I believe.

Remember those are just EA's sales figures. Another company would have a different sales breakdown regarding where the focus is.

[Trigger]

Their booth at E3 was mostly PC games I think. Battlefield and Medal of Honor and Sims 2 and a bunch of other stuff.

[cheapskate]

That 47% is for The Sims Expansion Packs alone... :D

[darkside]

Originally posted by ^sam^
That 47% is for The Sims Expansion Packs alone... :D

Thats true. :lol:

[DJ_Longfellow]

Originally posted by Draven
I think he was too :)

I read a really interesting article about Xbox Live/EA stuff in the latest XBN (I have no idea why this magazine shows up at my doorstep either.)

Basically it said that Microsoft wasn't willing to share any of the subscription fee revenue with EA. Sony was willing to let EA deal with all of the revenue. So from a business standpoint, EA hasn't wanted to commit to Xbox live, since there is NO incentive for them to do so. Which is probably true, since I think EA sports games will sell regardless of Xbox live content.

Bull*****...I really really really want to buy NCAA 2004 and/or Madden 2004, but I highly doubt it since it is not XBOX Live. I had to convert myself to NFL 2K3. I think it's a decent game, but i always liked the Madden series....but I really like online play. So, the only way i get MAdden is if it's cheap i suppose....

oh well, my 2 cents

[Trigger]

The reason EA dropped Live support is because they wanted a special deal from MS. MS gives every developer the same deal, but Sony kisses the ass of certain key developers giving them special deals while Nintendo buttrapes developers. That's why Sony has the best support and MS has average support and Nintendo has crappy support from 3rd parties. I think MS should be kissing asses in the beginning here... following Sony's lead on such things. Then, once they own everything - they can go back to the "same deal for everyone" thing.

[jekbrown]

or alternatively, MS could just buy EA and kank all ps2 on-line developement (or developement period!). :-)

gc is becoming very dc-like... but thats ok, I have been out of the gaming scene for a lil while and it'll allow me to pick up all the stuff i want dirt cheap. Some people cry when it happens, but I love it when a system starts to go belly up. cheap games/accessories for every1! :-)

j

[effigy]

Originally posted by Trigger
Yeah - stick a fork in PC gaming - it's done - nobody plays PC games anymore. PC gaming is gonna go the way of Dreamcast. :lol: Uh huh.

I know of a few people trying to spread the word on boycotting EA because of no online play for the Xbox. :\

[Static Cling]

Originally posted by Trigger
The reason EA dropped Live support is because they wanted a special deal from MS. MS gives every developer the same deal, but Sony kisses the ass of certain key developers giving them special deals while Nintendo buttrapes developers. That's why Sony has the best support and MS has average support and Nintendo has crappy support from 3rd parties. I think MS should be kissing asses in the beginning here... following Sony's lead on such things. Then, once they own everything - they can go back to the "same deal for everyone" thing. I had heard that MS has a much stricter control over what gets put over Live, and they want to approve every little thing, while Sony is a little less restrictive about what goes over their network. Just what I heard, though... could be completely wrong.

[Gallant Pig]

I thought the reason was EA has plans for their own Pay-to-Play network, and they thought it was unrealistic that consumers will pay for their online games on top of the MS fees.

[Trigger]

Originally posted by Static Cling
I had heard that MS has a much stricter control over what gets put over Live, and they want to approve every little thing, while Sony is a little less restrictive about what goes over their network. Just what I heard, though... could be completely wrong. That wasn't the problem EA had with MS on this deal. My friend who works for MS gave me this info at E3 right after coming from the meeting. MS is a little bit anal about their Live service - but none of the developers seem to have a problem with it - EA is being babies about the fact that MS won't cut them special consessions and discounts. I think MS should cave in a little to pick up key developers and I also think EA should stop acting like babies.

[Josh H]

I don't think EA is being "babies." If the X-box only accounts for 9% of their sales, they have no reason to support live without MS giving them some extra incentive. As stated in a post above, they probably wouldn't sell enough copies to recoup the costs of implementing Live in their games.

Both MS and Nintendo should be bending over backwards to please third parties, yet both continue to shoot themselves in the foot and let Sony get further and further ahead (or at least lose no ground).

[darkside]

Originally posted by Josh Hinkle


Both MS and Nintendo should be bending over backwards to please third parties, yet both continue to shoot themselves in the foot and let Sony get further and further ahead (or at least lose no ground).

I think Nintendo has been bending over backwards for EA. EA could have easily dropped Cube support (at least sports), but they have stayed aboard like they did with the N64. Nintendo must have a heck of a relationship with EA.

EA was the company that declared the Dreamcast a dead console before it was ever launched and declared they would never support it. They have the opposite attitude about the Cube even though its in much the same boat.

[Josh H]

True. I was mainly refering to Nintendo still charging the highest of the three companies in licensing fees to third parties (assuming that this is true, I've never seen actual numbers for this generation).

They must have some special deal with EA though, either lower fees or no fees etc.

[al_bundy]

I heard the problem with EA and Live was that they wanted to run their own servers and not have MS between them and their customers.

Jack Welch from GE said that you never let anyone come between your company and your customers. And he is one person that almost every other business leader listens to.

[jekbrown]

Originally posted by Josh Hinkle
I don't think EA is being "babies." If the X-box only accounts for 9% of their sales

if you're not getting the sales you want, chopping yourself off at the knees probably isn't the best way to improve the situation. Fact is, pretty soon all the other major sports franchises on xbox will be live compatible and the ea ones won't. This clearly puts the ea sports titles at a significant disadvantage, especially as the xbl base grows larger and larger. Like I said, intentionally putting your self at a disadvantage is not the best way to get higher sales numbers.

j

[jekbrown]

Originally posted by darkside
EA was the company that declared the Dreamcast a dead console before it was ever launched and declared they would never support it.

yeah, thats pretty much the lamest thing a developer has done in the history of consoles. I don't buy much EA stuff... and their attitude towards the dc and the xbox is one of the big reasons why.

j

[Trigger]

Originally posted by Josh Hinkle
I don't think EA is being "babies." If the X-box only accounts for 9% of their sales, they have no reason to support live without MS giving them some extra incentive. If you made 100 dollars a week from cutting lawns at a buck a lawn, would you piss away 9 dollars a week just because one of your neighborhoods doesn't kiss your ass and give you more lemonaid than they give other kids who mow lawns in the neighborhood? If yes, then you're being a baby. EA isn't the only game in town for sports (pun coincidental) and yet they act like they are. You weren't in on the meeting (not that I was either, but I've heard a first hand account of it), so you don't know. MS needs to loosen up their policies to draw in the key developers and EA needs to stop being babies. Perhaps another important question could be - what percent of MS Xbox related sales does EA account for? I imagine less than 9%.

[tanman]

Well, the XBox and the GCN are still selling just as well as the PS2 when you look at the numbers of units.

PS2 51.2
XBox 13
GCN 9.4

Worldwide as of 3/31/03 according to EGM.




And in terms of bargains, the XBox has just as many cheap games as the GCN and the PS2 has much more bargains than do either of the two and the GBA has about twice as much as that (no i don't have numbers just look around). So you really can't tell the success of the platform by how many bargains are out there.

The shelflife of Video games are not what they used to be. Console games are almost catching up to the PC in terms of shelf life.

[fujishig]

I honestly don't think EA's refusal to use Live will affect their sales that much. They will still sell a ton of PS2 titles, maybe even more since multi-console owners with internet will probably want the PS2 one.

Madden absolutely destroyed 2K last year, and the games were very similar. The name recognition is what appeals to the average gamer. And, like it or not, even on the Xbox online gamers are the minority. If Live compatibility would've cost too much money or even delayed the game, they made a good decision. Also, if they're game sells just as well, it'll give them leverage for next season's games... as Madden on Live will surely sell a lot of subscriptions.

[Kicker_of_Elves]

Madden Online is 1 of 2 reasons im thinking about picking up a ps2(so i can kick my old roommates ass again!) other is metal gear solid 3..

Im pissed as hell that its not on xbox live, part of me wants to wait til next year but i already did that with 2003 and its still not on live :(

[The Franchise]

Why is everyone so down on PS2 online? I understand that XB Live is pretty cool, but from what I've read, the new EA games will pretty much do everything that XB Live does: Voice chat, leagues, matching, stat keeping etc. On top of that it's all free!
I guess I understand if you only have an XBOX then not having online support sucks, but PS2 online is still pretty fun and efficient.

Also I feel bad for Sega if they think first person mode and including the ESPN monkier will sell more games. Heck, even ESPN uses Madden for it's football commentary sometimes.

[Josh H]

Originally posted by Trigger
If you made 100 dollars a week from cutting lawns at a buck a lawn, would you piss away 9 dollars a week just because one of your neighborhoods doesn't kiss your ass and give you more lemonaid than they give other kids who mow lawns in the neighborhood? If yes, then you're being a baby. EA isn't the only game in town for sports (pun coincidental) and yet they act like they are. You weren't in on the meeting (not that I was either, but I've heard a first hand account of it), so you don't know. MS needs to loosen up their policies to draw in the key developers and EA needs to stop being babies. Perhaps another important question could be - what percent of MS Xbox related sales does EA account for? I imagine less than 9%.

True, but probably not many will boycott EA an not buy the games at all. Not too many people out there only own an X-box or GC (compared to those that only own a PS2).

So those with a PS2 will buy the PS2 version, and most of those with an X-box and PS2 will buy the PS2 version for the online play.

So they're not really losing many sales in the end in all likelihood, whereas in your example I'd be losing the $9.

[tanman]

Originally posted by The Franchise

Also I feel bad for Sega if they think first person mode and including the ESPN monkier will sell more games. Heck, even ESPN uses Madden for it's football commentary sometimes.

They have monks on ESPN :hscratch:

[Trigger]

Originally posted by Josh Hinkle
True, but probably not many will boycott EA an not buy the games at all. Not too many people out there only own an X-box or GC (compared to those that only own a PS2).

So those with a PS2 will buy the PS2 version, and most of those with an X-box and PS2 will buy the PS2 version for the online play.

So they're not really losing many sales in the end in all likelihood, whereas in your example I'd be losing the $9. All I was trying to illustrate was that 9% isn't just something to turn your nose up at... hell, even 1% is a big deal. If I'm following what you're suggesting here now, you're saying that people will still go buy the EA games for another system and that 9% will just shift from Xbox to PS2. I don't buy that. I never said anything about a boycott, but if xbox owners don't have the opportunity to buy EA games, they'll just buy something else.

Your theory about single console owners vs multiple console owners is flawed - you have no way of knowing whether Xbox owners own a PS2 or GC or vice versa - all you have to go on are polls and the fact that there are more PS2s in the world than Xboxes. Plus, it's not taking into account that there are tons of PS2s in Japan and EA isn't a big seller in Japan, so you have to just look at the US basically... I don't know - I just don't think EA should be pissing away their Xbox sales just because MS won't "sweeten the deal". I agree that MS should be more flexible.

[Josh H]

I was just going by installed base.

If there are 50 million PS2s, and around 5 million X-boxes, there are going to be a lot more that own only a PS2 or a PS2 or an X-box, rather than those that just own and X-box. It's simple logic.

Thus EA is giving most gamers a chance to play madden online, as most gamers own at least a PS2 (due to the higher number).

9% isn't a huge chunk, and EA would have to spend money to develop live support, rather than just porting over the same online system they have in place for the PS2. Thus MS should pay them extra to go to the effort as they probably wouldn't make much profit off of having live support after you subtract out the R&D costs.

[s}{ammer]

I think MS should do whatever it takes to get EA making online games. I might end up buying Fever this time around to try out the new tournament thing MS is doing, but having EA titles have live compatibility should have been a priority.

[AXP 103]

I'm surprised so many posters used terms such as childish or babies when describing EA's decision. Their motive is stay profitable, if meeting MS's demands was a requirement to reach their goal- they would do it.

But there hasn't been any evidence to imply that this is the case. The number of owners who own the PS2 doubles that of the X-Box and GC combined. The X-Box is a great machine, but it isn't the market leader. This gives EA, the leader in sports games, a great deal of leverage that they shouldn't simply piss away so they can keep a few fan boys happy.

12 Month Stock Chart (http://quotes.nasdaq.com/quote.dll?page=charting&mode=basics&selected=ERTS&symbol=ERTS%60&timeframe=1y&charttype=line)

Add in the fact that their stock price has been steadily climbing for a few months, and is right around their 52 week high, I would be pretty happy with their decision making as a stock holder.

EA is going very strong in a industry that has seen many former giants (Sega, Atari, Data East, etc.) either regress or die. And they do it by making good games and decisions, not by having a winning personality.

[The Franchise]

In our lifetime EA will, at some point, be the most powerful media company on the planet. Once games overtake movies (they're close if they haven't already) as the biggest entertainment money makers EA will be the proverbial godfather. I bought them at $50 and have made a sweet profit but they have a lot of upside left in them (a little NBA humor).

Long story short: it's good to have EA on your side.

[jrutz]

Originally posted by The Franchise
In our lifetime EA will, at some point, be the most powerful media company on the planet. Once games overtake movies (they're close if they haven't already) as the biggest entertainment money makers EA will be the proverbial godfather. I bought them at $50 and have made a sweet profit but they have a lot of upside left in them (a little NBA humor).

Long story short: it's good to have EA on your side.

I think their price target was at 80 per share, which they are at now. If you can short them it might be a good idea, and then pick them back up in a couple months to catch the holiday rush.

I bought EA last summer at 62, and Activision at 26. EA is at 76 today, down from near 80, and Activision has been stuck at 13 for months. I sold ATVI months ago at 15 and took a loss, because I didn't want my money stuck in that lagger while the rest of the market was moving up. I've since made up for that loss and then some. ;)

But I agree, this stock will probably go for a split soon to bring back investors, and take off from there.

Jeremy

[jekbrown]

Originally posted by Josh Hinkle
I was just going by installed base.

If there are 50 million PS2s, and around 5 million X-boxes, there are going to be a lot more that own only a PS2 or a PS2 or an X-box, rather than those that just own and X-box. It's simple logic.

Thus EA is giving most gamers a chance to play madden online, as most gamers own at least a PS2 (due to the higher number).

9% isn't a huge chunk, and EA would have to spend money to develop live support, rather than just porting over the same online system they have in place for the PS2. Thus MS should pay them extra to go to the effort as they probably wouldn't make much profit off of having live support after you subtract out the R&D costs.

i must be a freak, I have a xbox and gc but no ps2. lol! in any event, I see what you're saying about the development costs that adding XBL support would cost EA... at the same time, if Sega can afford it, its a drop in the bucket for EA. Additionally, if EA is already making PC versions of certain sports games that have internet or LAN capability, porting it over to the xbox wouldnt cost too much in R&D... would it? doesn't seem like it. Im not a programmer or software engineer, so i dunno. <shrug>

if the above IS true, I think EA is just being babies. They know Sony is willing to get down on its knees for them, and MS won't, so they take their ball and go home. pretty weak.

j

[jekbrown]

Originally posted by jrutz
I think their price target was at 80 per share, which they are at now. If you can short them it might be a good idea, and then pick them back up in a couple months to catch the holiday rush.

I bought EA last summer at 62, and Activision at 26. EA is at 76 today, down from near 80, and Activision has been stuck at 13 for months. Jeremy

my first stock buy ever was Sega at $2/share... sold it at a shade over $5 a share. Not bad profit in less than a year. Of course, if Sega had gone bankrupt or something I woulda been screwed. lol!

j

[Trigger]

Originally posted by Josh Hinkle
I was just going by installed base.

If there are 50 million PS2s, and around 5 million X-boxes, there are going to be a lot more that own only a PS2 or a PS2 or an X-box, rather than those that just own and X-box. It's simple logic. First of all - how did Xbox go from over a 10 million install base over 6 months ago to 5 million?? Maybe you were thinking of gamecube install base. Secondly - you may think it's logical, but it's incorrect. You can't just assume that because there are more PS2 owners than Xbox owners that most Xbox owners also have a PS2. That's not logic at all.

Originally posted by Josh Hinkle
9% isn't a huge chunk, and EA would have to spend money to develop live support, rather than just porting over the same online system they have in place for the PS2. Thus MS should pay them extra to go to the effort as they probably wouldn't make much profit off of having live support after you subtract out the R&D costs. You missed my whole point... 9% is a large chunk. MS's Live is easier to develop for, and it's alot less costly to maintain for EA since MS is paying for it... Why should MS pay extra to have EA produce a competitor to their first party Live enabled sports line-up? It's sounding to me like the conclusions you're drawing are being affected by your loathing of the Xbox (and I can't even understand why you hate a game console so much anyway).

[jrutz]

Here's the direct quote from the 10-K:

"In May 2003, we announced that we have no plans to support the online service for Xbox. It is unclear whether the absence of online functionality in our Xbox products will be important enough to consumers to affect sales of our Xbox products."

Jeremy

[Trigger]

Sure - that's what they tell the public. ;)

Last figures I saw showed that there were more Xbox Live users than Playstation Online users going just by sales of Live kits vs. sales of PS2 modems. Maybe that's changed... I dunno. Their reason for doing this was solely based on the fact that MS wouldn't make special concessions for them and cut EAs costs over other developers... the kind of arse kissing they're used to from Sony.

[Josh H]

Where the hell did you get that I hate the X-box?

I said nothing of the sort. I just don't think EA is being unreasonable not supporting live, that's all. I've said in a couple of other threads (see the SW- KoTR thread) that I plan on buying an X-box when it drops to $99 in a year or two to pick up Halo, PDO, KoTR etc.

I think you just love the console so much you perceive any criticism as hate.

I love Nintendo, but there's tons of things I criticize them for. I don't blindly love any company.

Lastly, I don't consider 9% to be a "huge chunk." Especially when you consider that a lot of X-box owners are going to buy the EA games anyway. If you're numbers are right, there are 10 million X-box owners (I said five million because I haven't seen any sales numbers since pre x-mas as I really don't give a crap). But how many have live. The last numbers I saw were 150,000, I'm sure it's more than that now, maybe 250,000 or so tops.

So EA isn't alienating all X-box owners by not including live support, but rather the relatively small number that have live. In other words, no big loss for them.

[Trigger]

Originally posted by Josh Hinkle
Where the hell did you get that I hate the X-box?

I said nothing of the sort. I just don't think EA is being unreasonable not supporting live, that's all. I've said in a couple of other threads (see the SW- KoTR thread) that I plan on buying an X-box when it drops to $99 in a year or two to pick up Halo, PDO, KoTR etc. relax, guy.

Originally posted by Josh Hinkle
I think you just love the console so much you perceive any criticism as hate. -rolleyes-

Originally posted by Josh Hinkle
I love Nintendo, but there's tons of things I criticize them for. I don't blindly love any company. okie dokie.

Originally posted by Josh Hinkle
Lastly, I don't consider 9% to be a "huge chunk." Especially when you consider that a lot of X-box owners are going to buy the EA games anyway. If you're numbers are right, there are 10 million X-box owners (I said five million because I haven't seen any sales numbers since pre x-mas as I really don't give a crap). But how many have live. The last numbers I saw were 150,000, I'm sure it's more than that now, maybe 250,000 or so tops. Would you miss 9% of your body if I cut it off?

Assume it costs the same to make their games online for Sony as it does for Xbox... assume there are more Xbox Live users than Playstation Online users. It doesn't make sense to just poop away those sales.

Originally posted by Josh Hinkle
So EA isn't alienating all X-box owners by not including live support, but rather the relatively small number that have live. In other words, no big loss for them. I dunno... it doesn't really matter. MS's sports games looked great to me, maybe nobody's gonna miss EA anyway. I don't play sports games, so I care even less.


I don't wanna fight with ya... peace.

[Josh H]

I don't want to fight either. But the point is, they will still get a lot of X-box sells because the vast majority of the 10 million X-box owners don't have Live and thus aren't effected by the lack of Live support. Thus they aren't cutting off 9%. EA is only ignoring Live users. Lets say they're are 250,000 of them. That represents only .025 percent of X-box owners. So they will probably still get most of the 9% that bought Madden etc. on the box last year.

It gets even more insignificant if you look at the big picutre. Lets say they're are 50 million PS2s, 10 million x-boxes and 5 million gamecubes. So they're are 65 million systems, and 250,000 X-box live users, making up .0038% of the total console users.

Taking that into consideration, I see no reason that EA is being babies for wanting some extra incentive to research and develop a feature in their games that can only be used by .0038% of the gaming population.

[darkside]

Originally posted by Josh Hinkle
Lets say they're are 250,000 of them.

I think I read somewhere there are over a half million Xbox Live users, but its still a drop in the gaming bucket. Online gaming is still at least a generation of consoles away from being a factor.

So I agree that EA is losing next to nothing by not supporting Xbox live.

Just like Nintendo is losing next to nothing and saving a lot of money by not supporting online gaming.

[Trigger]

Too much math.

I'd still like to know if you would miss 9% of your body if I cut it off. :p

[darkside]

Originally posted by Trigger
Too much math.

I'd still like to know if you would miss 9% of your body if I cut it off. :p

They are not losing 9% though. The still sell their games on the Xbox and the 2003 games sold pretty well even without Live support.

As far as the original question. It would depend on the 9%. Could I liposuction out the 9%. :lol:

[Decker]

I think that EA's decision had far more to do with thier preferring Sony's approach to letting them run their online server over MS' centralized approach than with the comparible number of online users or potential buyers. Remember, last year EA announced that they would only support Maddem 2003 online until 2004 came out. They may have given lots of reasons for this, but the simple fact is it forces online players into buying a new version of the game every year. If MS refuses to support that position, what was EA to do? This way, they can make their own decisions about online support (such as potentially charging a subscription fee, ect) and they don't have to answer to anyone. It's perhaps a cold-blooded decision, but one that makes some sense from a business POV.

BTW, don't forget that the PS2 is now being sold online-ready. That means that anyone buying a new PS2 with ANY internet connection can be online today at no additional charge. Yes, Xbox live is a better, more efficient, more supported program, but when you talk about potential consumers of online video games, clearly PS2 has a huge edge now.

[Gallant Pig]

Is anyone going to care about EA games online if they have to cough up $10 a month to play them?

[Josh H]

Originally posted by darkside
I think I read somewhere there are over a half million Xbox Live users, but its still a drop in the gaming bucket. Online gaming is still at least a generation of consoles away from being a factor.


If that's the case they would be .0077% of the total console owners. :D

[Josh H]

Originally posted by Gallant Pig
Is anyone going to care about EA games online if they have to cough up $10 a month to play them?

Some will, but not enough for it to be a success IMO. I don't think we'll ever see pay per play games be a success on the consoles. Systems like Live that let you play all the online games for a low fee should be fine, but I don't think many other than the most hardcore online gamers (which currently is a relatively small number in the console world) will be willing to shell out a monthly fee to play just one game online.

Maybe if EA would charge so much a month or year to play all of their games it would do better as there are so many gamers for whom EA's sports games are the main games they play.

[darkside]

Originally posted by Gallant Pig
Is anyone going to care about EA games online if they have to cough up $10 a month to play them?

Personally I think it will only work as long as its free. Online RPGs like Everquest or Star Wars Galaxies will get people to pay a monthly fee to play because its an entire world that they devote tons of time to, but I doubt people would pay a per game fee to play sports games online.

[jrutz]

Originally posted by Josh Hinkle
If that's the case they would be .0077% of the total console owners. :D

How do you get your math? If there's 10 million Xboxes, and 500,000 XBL accounts, that's 1/20th, or 5%, not 0.77% as you are stating...

Jeremy

[Gallant Pig]

I think he means 7.7% and is just denoting it incorrectly, he's using fractions and then putting a percent sign at the end.

.0077% actually is like .000077 fraction.

:)

[Josh H]

Originally posted by jrutz
How do you get your math? If there's 10 million Xboxes, and 500,000 XBL accounts, that's 1/20th, or 5%, not 0.77% as you are stating...

Jeremy

Check my first post, I was going for total of all console owners estimating 10 million X-box, 50 million PS2 and 5 million PS2. So it's 500,000 XBL accounts divided by 65 million.

No one will potentially boycott the EA games for lack of live support except the Live users who make up only .7% of the total owners of all consoles.

Gallant, yep, I f'ed up and forget to take the decimal points out, but it is .77 percent rather than 7.7% (.007x100).

So in sum, EA is alienating 5% of X-box users, and .77% of all console users by not supporting live. Which is no big deal and makes it silly to call them "babies" for expecting some extra incentive for MS to put a feature in their game that less that 1% of all console gamers have access to.

[Trigger]

Your math doesn't work. your percentages can't be "of all console users" or "total owners of all consoles" - if you're going to use the figures you're using, you have to say "consoles owned" since you're going by numbers of consoles sold and you have no idea how many people own them. Plus - Xbox had 10 million consoles out there over 6 months ago, it's gotta be alot more now. Plus, I'm sure GC has more than 5 mil out there and PS2 I don't think has quite 50Mil... so to even suggest your figures are accurate is rediculous. This is all pretty pointless anyway.

You're just going through all this to argue with the fact I said they were being "babies"... it was just my interpretation of what had transpired in the meeting at E3 that took place between MS and EA as it was described to me by someone who was in attendance... this same person also agreed that MS was being stubborn and stupid and that EA was being babies. You don't like that description? Fine. Don't like it. But you're going waaaaay out of your way to try to debunk some random opinion with insane math.

[Josh H]

Well, consoles owned is the important figure. Even if 10 people in a frat house use one PS2, they're only going buy one copy of Madden.

And I never said my figures were accurate, I clearly said they were estimates. If the console total figure is higher than 65 million as you suggested (and the offered 500,000 XBL users was right) then the percentage would be even smaller, making my point even stronger. ;)

I wasn't going way out of my way. I estimated some numbers and did some extremely simple, middle school level math. Hardy insane. :D