Will Electronic Arts release their own console within 5 years? (place your bets)

K

Kleegamefan

K. LEE GAIDEN
I say there is a 50/50 chance this will happen before 2010

I also say that if there is anything that could kill Sonys PlayStation dominance, it would be the EAstation....
 
Hard to say. It depends on how they plan to expand their business. They've tried dealing in hardware before and it wasn't a success. I reckon they may feel it's too big a risk. After all, they have a pretty good thing going as it is.

I reckon it's more likely that they'll expand into music and movies but certainly an EA branded system could be huge.
 
I fear it won't be long until EAs first console hits the market. And I think it would be a serious contender for the market share, especially in the USA.
 
Why? They're powerful enough to negotiate their own terms with console manufacturers; just look at how they pushed around MS with the whole Live thing. They're already making money by the metric assload. Why worry about things like developing a console and selling it for an initial loss when you can keep pushing out high-profit-margin software with a market that's about 100% of the current console market?
 
If they have all the major sports licenses tied up for (at least) 3 years by the time they would theoretically launch it, then I wouldn't be shocked at all. A lot of people play sports games, and if you could only get NFL, NBA, MLB, etc games on one console...

Also, if you don't think they'd put out enough games as a first party developer (I have no clue who would think that now) at this point, consider all the resources they'd have from studios/man power who'd usually port their games to the other consoles.
 
They could definitely carry a system (as in, game releases) ...they might be content to be 3rd party.

I think the closest we saw to an EA system was 3DO.

Not that it is a great example heh.
 
No, EA learned of teh 3DO and their power lies in the shared content between multiple consoles. EA is too smart to start hardware which isn't gaining any profit within 5 years.
 
Ruud_Luiten said:
No, EA learned of teh 3DO and their power lies in the shared content between multiple consoles. EA is too smart to start hardware which isn't gaining any profit within 5 years.
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If EA made a console and it was the ONLY place you could play Madden, it'd be profitable in the first year.
 
Yeah, like someone said above, why make a console and fight for dear life to reach 30% of the market when you're already selling to 100% of the market?

ManaByte said:
If EA made a console and it was the ONLY place you could play Madden, it'd be profitable in the first year.
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But more profitable than the 6-7 million copies they already sell annually by being multiplatform? No.
 
ChrisReid said:
Yeah, like someone said above, why make a console and fight for dear life to reach 30% of the market when you're already selling to 100% of the market?
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Because with EXCLUSIVE rights to the NFL they could make their console the only place you could get a professional football game and instantly snag the entire sports game market. Madden sells what, 5 million?, yearly? That's a ton of people. If the grab the other sports licenses, they'd have a lock and an instantly successful console because EA Sports would be the only licensed sports games and you'd only be able to play them on EA's console.
 
There's more money in selling software over multiple established platforms as opposed to their own exclusive console. They may one day partner up with an established platform but never on their own.
 
michael000 said:
There's more money in selling software over multiple established platforms as opposed to their own exclusive console.
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First of all, the PS3, Xenon, nor Revolution are established (though at least one will be of course).

Secondly, getting 100% of the profit made from selling your videogame is better than getting whatever they get after paying Nintendo/Sony/Microsoft and funding their port houses. Whether or not they'd make more or less money if they were able to budge into the console wars is difficult to determine.
 
The real question is, if EA did enter the console biz, and owned exclusive rights to make games based on all of the main sports, how would this affect the console war rankings? Who would come out on top without the help of sports games, and also without the majority of the big multiplatform releases? I'd almost like to see it happen, just so I could see how it played out.
 
Mike Works said:
First of all, the PS3, Xenon, nor Revolution are established (though at least one will be of course).

Secondly, getting 100% of the profit made from selling your videogame is better than getting whatever they get after paying Nintendo/Sony/Microsoft and funding their port houses. Whether or not they'd make more or less money if they were able to budge into the console wars is difficult to determine.
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Didn't mention any of those systems in my post, you did. Never was following the proposed 2010 date, only was stating a fact that you're going to get the most sales from established consoles as opposed as trying to go exclusive in an already competitive market.
 
I have always thought that EA will release their own console.

EA are slowly building killer apps that people would actually buy a console for, imagine exclusive Fifa around Europe (maybe pro evo would kill this one) or Madden for NA.

EA know how to do one thing, and thats cater for the casual gamer and with casual gamers becoming more apparent (bye bye Nintendo success) EA can only profit.


I actually think EA have this planned, thats why they are slowly buying their way into the industry with the success of their sport franchise games (and others in some cases).



-SB
 
I hope so. It would cause a big rift that I think would be good for the industry. EA would have ALL its properties on one console, thus forcing the others to find new ways to compete.

The EA must die.
 
Yes. I'm counting on it and if anything it would damage MS the most.

Nintendo could survive thanks to their first party sales around the world.

Sony could survive thanks to strong Japanese third party support.

Microsoft's strongest market (in terms of both marketshare and third party support) is the US. EA provides them with more content than any other third party. If they lose EA they will lose a lot (as will Sony). But unlinke Sony they don't have a lot that they can fall back on.
 
I think alot of gamers are already upset enough that they may need to buy three different consoles to play all the games they want. If EA were to add yet another one to the mix, there'd probably be a backlash. Yeah, sports fans would gobble it up if their sports titles were limited to just that system, but the remaining market they'd alienate wouldn't help their profit margins any and probably the opposite. EA's raking in the cash now, why would they take such a risk? Besides, I think they've learned quite abit from the 3DO. I will say that if Nintendo's next console fairs as well (poorly) as the GC, they may just bail on that console all together and focus on the other two big boys.
 
EA + royalties is a scary prospect... but you know they'd be good/competitive at it..

I wouldn't mind seeing them try to be honest. I'd like it more if they proposed a standardisation forum though that comes together every hardware cycle.
 
radioheadrule83 said:
EA + royalties is a scary prospect...
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That's what they bought Criterion for.

I don't really see EA pushing their own console, but I do think they'd like to push for more standardization in the industry. If a "game consortium" were ever to form, I could see EA leading the charge. They were part of the 3DO group, right?
 
jarrod said:
That's what they bought Criterion for.

I don't really see EA pushing their own console, but I do think they'd like to push for more standardization in the industry. If a "game consortium" were ever to form, I could see EA leading the charge. They were part of the 3DO group, right?
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Not sure. But they share the same founder/funder: Trip Hawkins
 
Do The Mario said:
The thread should have ended right there
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IAWTP.

Not going to happen. Assuming a best case scenario where they get a 33% market share vs Sony, Nintendo, & Microsoft, they have effectively cut off 67% of the market from playing their games. It's why most publishers are multiplatform. Limiting your audience for ALL of your games is just not a good way to go unless you can get the hardware guys to pay extra for exclusivity.
 
If Nintendo drops out, EA will come in. I hope that it doesn't, though; I'd rather there be more competitors in the industry.
 
Most of Electronic Art's high selling games are generic, most based off of popular licenses in which EA does not own.

They don't have the power to create a console. They would get no support, and companies would see this as a new way to seize market share on the current companie's systems.
 
EA makes too much money as it is as a 3rd party developer.

why the fuck would they want to invest in the money drain that is console making
 
Yup. I see SquareEnix and EA hooking up on a console with Samsung. Got Japan. Got US. Got largest consumer electronics corp. Nintendo would probably be hurt the least, with Sony and MS crying.
 
I know Nintendo, Microsoft and Sony are shitting their pants now. EA is a fucking monster run amok
 
-SRV- said:
Yup. I see SquareEnix and EA hooking up on a console with Samsung. Got Japan. Got US. Got largest consumer electronics corp. Nintendo would probably be hurt the least, with Sony and MS crying.
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Last time I checked the largest consumer electronic corp was Matsushita not Samsung.

Sony and MS both have resources that completely dwarf EA's not to mention more identifyable franchises that aren't generic. MGS having less, but more strength backing it with Halo.
 
Realistically, other then Sports games does EA have any other franchises that people would buy their console for?

BTW, does anyone know exactly just how much money EA has?
 
Synbios459 said:
Realistically, other then Sports games does EA have any other franchises that people would buy their console for?

BTW, does anyone know exactly just how much money EA has?
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Well, a lot of rights could expire long before this happened of course but:

Lord of the Rings, The Godfather, James Bond, EA Big spin offs, war games (ie Battlefield 1942, Command & Conquer, Medal of Honour etc), simulations/deity-games (The Sims, Black & White etc)
 
Their top non sports franchises

- Battlefield (fairly generic)
- Medal of Honor (generic)
- Harry Potter (they don't own the rights to harry potter)
- Bond (they don't own the rights to bond, and Sony will probably end up with them with their contract ends)
- Need for Speed (generic)
- Def Jam Vendetta (generic, and based off of likeness in which they do not own the rights to)
- Lord of the Rings (they do not own the rights)
- The Sims (doesn't have the same success on consoles as it does pc)

Then their sports games are all generic, with the newfound exception of football where they will reign supreme for the next 5 years.

Electronic Arts has 2.4 billion dollars in cash, cash equivalents, and short term investments, but i take it they've just spent about 300-500 million on the NFL exclusive license.

44% of their revenue for 2004 has come from the PS2, 13% from the Xbox, 7% from the gamecube...
 
DCX said:
jarrod said:
That's what they bought Criterion for.
QUOTE/]
One word RENDERWARE

DCX
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I think they've broken into my archives. I would have bought criterion and ubi soft years ago if i had the money of someone like ea and was in the game business.

these are pretty solid purchases.
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"Generic" is a fairly subjective term... as much as I love Hot Shots for example, it's about as generic as they come I'd say. Or how about Gran Turismo, which would nothing without the various licenses it uses... I'm not sure EA's really much worse off in terms of IPs than SCEI or MGS.
 
jarrod said:
"Generic" is a fairly subjective term... as much as I love Hot Shots for example, it's about as generic as they come I'd say. Or how about Gran Turismo, which would nothing without the various licenses it uses... I'm not sure EA's really much worse off in terms of IPs than SCEI or MGS.
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I was going to say something similar. As a first party, I think it would be quite comparable!
 
Call me crazy, but an EA console might just work with the right partner. The only partner I see that would fit would be sEgA. They still have the resources to design sexy hardware.
 
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