EA’s real problem [Comments Off]
EA’s announcement that their results for the fiscal year 2010 will come in lower than expected should not come to a surprise to anyone. MTV’s Multiplayer (accidentally) summed up what’s really wrong with EA:
Don’t run out and spend $60 on ["Army of Two: The 4th Day"], but definitely consider it for a rental or a future budget buy.
Unfortunately this is true for most of EA’s games these days.
AP: Rock Band 2 is game of the decade [Comments Off]
Contrary to what you might believe, the Associated Press does cover gaming-news. Not only that, but they also managed to compile a fairly good top 10 of 2009 list (“Uncharted 2: Among Thieves” won that), but the top honor, being called AP’s Game of the Decade went to Harmonix’s “Rock Band 2″.
Here’s why:
“Harmonix Music Systems provided an entirely new type of video-game experience with “Guitar Hero,” giving all of us the chance to live out our rock-star dreams. “Rock Band 2″ is Harmonix’s fullest realization yet of that ideal – and the one game I keep coming back to whenever I just want to have fun.”
Fantastic choice. It’s also fairly cool to see that a niche title such as “Demon’s Souls” got a nod from such an established publication.
You can check out their full list here.
Akira Yamaoka leaves Konami [Comments Off]
This is proper upsetting: Akira Yamaoka has left Konami, and with him goes the only redeemable quality of the late entries into the “Silent Hill” franchise, the soundtrack.
The news comes from a reliable source inside Konami, according to Aeropause.
Gutted.
Or this might just be a publicity gag for heart-broken fans to gobble up the “last Silent Hill game he worked on”, “Silent Hill: Shattered Memories” which releases soon for Wii, PS2 and PSP.
EA Montreal cutting back on Wii development [Comments Off]
Looks like the whole “the Wii is the market leader so we’ll be shifting our attention towards that console” plan of EA has gone belly up, which is grounds for celebration. Not that we mind the Wii, but it seems that not a lot of people not named HAL Laboratories or Miyamoto or Suda 51 have any sort of talent to develop compelling software for the device.
EA Montreal General Manager Alain Tascan has told EDGE that the studio will re-focus on “HD-Quality” Products. And we all know HD-Quality doesn’t fly on the Wii.
“The Wii market is a little bit unpredictable these days. We’re going to see how Christmas is going to do and while with the Wii we have had very successful titles, we are going to focus on big, blockbuster-type titles. It doesn’t mean that we are going to abandon the Wii, but as a studio we want to be ready for new challenges.”
Actually, that pretty much means they will totally be abandoning the Wii, except for finishing up some products that may or may not be in the pipeline.
Oh, and about the whole shtick about the unpredictability of the Wii market reeks of bullshit to me, because I can and will predict the sales of every Wii title just by looking at the box art. One of many skills I could teach John Riccitiello.
EA’s Pandemic to be shut down, Saboteur still on track [Comments Off]
Sources inside EA are indicating that the California-based mega publisher is about to shut Pandemic down, a studio that was acquired 2 years ago for $840 million (the deal also included “Mass Effect” developer BioWare). (Kotaku)
Pandemic has released 2 games under EA, the first being the more than lacklustre Mercenaries 2 as well as the even more disastrous “Lord of the Rings: Conquest”. However, most glaringly, the studio’s biggest failure was not delivering (on) its game based on the most successful movie in recent history, “The Dark Knight”, which was met by the subsequent closing of their Australian branch in 2008.
Today, EA let 200 of the people working for Pandemic go, while promising that “the Pandemic brand and franchises will live on”, and moving a “core IP team” to their EA LA studio.
Meanwhile, Gamestop is reporting that “The Saboteur” is “unaffected” and still on track for release in December.
Due to the nature of the deal to acquire Pandemic, there is a possibility that CEO John Riccitiello will have to answer to some stockholders’ questions regarding his leadership of the company, which since he has taken over, has been far from profitable. Market Rap writes:
According to SEC documents, Mr. Riccitello pocketed up to 4.9 million on that deal, and no doubt helped his fellow co-founders of Elevation Partners walk away making a nice profit on that deal. EA’s shareholders have been left with the bill – and a stock that has fallen 70% since that deal was completed.
It would be a sad statement for shareholder activism and shareholder rights if Mr. Riccitello [sic] were to continue his tenure as CEO of Electronic Arts without a challenge. [...] Mr. Riccitello [sic] ought to consider resigning his position for committing such a blatant act of self serving greed at the expense of EA’s shareholders.
While it remains to be seen if Mr. Riccitiello will have to answer to any kind of challenge regarding his position, this deal seems pretty outrageous if you put it in perspective (see the article linked above).
Kotaku is also indicating that the team working on “Command & Conquer 4: Tiberium Twilight” is being laid off after shipping the title, as well as a large part of the team making up the Maxis studio. We will report on this as it develops.
We kindly want to wish all of the laid off staff all the best in the future, as well as all our friends and ex-colleagues affected in these lay-offs.
EA frustrated with the Wii [Comments Off]
EA is a bit sad. Not just because they’re still bleeding money like crazy and had to let 1,300 people go, but also because their Wii games aren’t selling as well as they’d like.
John Riccitiello was whining about this in yersterday’s conference call:
“To be honest with you, I think the Wii platform has been a little weaker than we had certainly anticipated. And there is no lack of frustration to be doing that at precisely the time where we have the strongest third-party share. Frankly, I think they need more beats in the year than they get out of a first-party slate – to be able to have the Wii software platform perform as well as they would like. We are building the products that I think the most highly rated on the platform and at this point in time, generating the most revenue of any third-party platform.
Wii is where we are missing it and so I really do think that the opportunity exists to find different ways to partner with first party in this case to sort of help establish in the minds of the consumer legitimacy of some of these other brands when they are going out multiplatform because very, very few multiplatform titles are succeeding on the Wii.”
Here, Mr. Riccitiello, have some cheese with that. Ok, so here’s the deal: No one cares about your dumb Wii games. Keep making EA Sports Active and you’ll be golden. Every dollar wasted on another on-rails shooter is a dollar that could’ve gone towards someone’s salary — preferably one of those people you just fired.
Yes, there are 50 million Wii consoles out there, but most people have theirs either hacked or are busy deciding between “Raving Rabbids” and “Carnival Games” to play with their grandmother, bless her heart.
Oh, in totally unrelated EA news, you know what else is going to bomb, and bomb hard? “Skate 3″. Fuck “Skate 3″.
Thanks to GI.biz for the transcript.
Rumor: Zenimax buying Valve? [Comments Off]
In this weeks GamesIndustry.biz newsletter, titled Digital Survival, Rob Fahey suggests that rumors are out there that Zenimax might be buying Valve:
However, it’s also worth watching closely what happens to Steam in the coming months. Unconfirmed industry scuttlebutt suggests that Zenimax – the parent company of Bethesda, which made headlines back in June when it acquired legendary PC studio id Software – is still on the acquisition trail, and has been making eyes at “Half-Life” creators Valve across the bar.
It remains to be seen if this acquisition will come to fruition but it certainly is an interesting suggestion. It’s important to keep in mind though, that Valve is a privately owned company and can’t just be bought.
Ballmer: Xbox 360 getting blu-ray; Digital-Foundry: makes no sense [Comments Off]
While a Blu-Ray drive will never be in the Xbox 360, Ballmer confirmed today that you will be able to buy one to add to your existing console:
Well I don’t know if we need to put Blu-ray in there—you’ll be able to get Blu-ray drives as accessories.
Ballmer really does not want you to buy that PS3. However, the announcement was faced with scepticism early on, as DigitalFoundry’s Richard Leadbetter points out:
HD-DVD handled 30Mbps max, while Blu-ray ups the ante to 50Mbps. At the time of the HD-DVD add-on’s launch, Microsoft talked about how a combination of both CPU and GPU power was required to handle the decoding. Assuming there’s no overhead in the code, it could require significant re-engineering to get it up to BD specs.
This is just one from the laundry list of reasons he deems it unlikely.
While Microsoft certainly is no stranger to adding accessories to the Xbox 360, this move seems highly unlikely, given that the company has often stretched that they believe that digital distribution is the future for movies on consoles, offering solutions such as Netflix Streaming, Video on Demand, and soon, the Zune Marketplace on Xbox 360.
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