Topic: EA/Nintendo Sports

[Andy]

A part of the NEWTECHNIX news story today about Shigeru Miyamoto confirming the existance of a Konami/Nintendo joint Metal Gear Solid game (With GBA connectivity), and almost as significant if not more has been overlooked.

A few weeks ago EA pulled their sports titles from Gamecube due to poor sales, the forgotten story was that Shigeru Miyamoto also confirmed that Nintendo are collaborating with EA to produce sports titles which will also utilize GC-GBA connectivity.

This is HUGE on Nintendo's part to realise that they need to aggressivly attract better third party support, dont get me wrong, the Capcom Resident Evil, Namco Starfox and Sega F-zero deals are all great, but they are too little too late, as several third parties are pulling support from the Gamecube, namely EA, Sega, THQ and Codemasters.

The average casual gamer when choosing a system, will always choose the one with the best variety, this being the PS2, the announcement that EA were dropping there sports titles was a huge blow, and GameCube sales are already suffering worldwide.

I dont actually like EA sports titles, they are all yearly installments with minor tweaks to tream rosters and the occasional graphical glitch. but with Nintendo teaming up with EA to deliver these sports titles, the GameCube library will have a varied range of quality sports titles which will easily be superior to the Madden 2001, Madden 2002, Madden 2003 style EA have been rigourlesly following.

[Sean]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought Sega was the one who pulled their sports lineup a few weeks ago.  I mean, what kind of sense would it make for Nintendo to be working with EA on sports games if EA isn't working with Nintendo on sports games...haha.  ;-)

Also, what's this about Nintendo's GameCube sales doing poorly worldwide?  From a certain perspective, that may seem true, but Nintendo is still number 2 in the world, and they aren't giving away their software to the degree that Microsoft is, so it's not really accurate to say that Nintendo is struggling worldwide.  What a run-on sentence....

[egman]

I surpised considering the heated disscussions that occured after Sega confirmed the 2K series would not reappear.

This is a great addition to a number of great news bits on GameCube. Anyone still saying that Nintendo needs to go 3rd party or something of that nature would need to pull their head out from where it's stuck.  

[manunited4eva22]

Once again, why have there been no other statements by any other websites?

[Darc Requiem]

Well the MGS thread has different sites supporting at least the Konami part of the rumor. I am still unconvinced but its seeming more likely with each site that confirms it. Even the Konami admin of their forums backed up the MGS for cube claim. So the EA rumor could be true, I'm not banking on it but Nintendo did say they would continue partnerships and that E3 would have surprises. Hopefully Rick will chime in, he always has incite and I can't remember the last time PGC was wrong about anything.

Darc Requiem

[kennyb27]

Well, forgive me if I am wrong, but last year's Madden (2003) did connect to the GBA.  Although it was a simple strategy (just a scoreboard), it was a connection.   So this "new" deal between Nintendo and EA could be in fact, a deepening of the already existant relationship (maybe Nintendo showing EA programmers a thing or two about the actual programming and abilities of the connection).  

[greenwood]

Well, the way play-calling is in Madden already allows you to call a play without your opponent knowing exactly what play you called. Although I guess they could try to guess which of the 3 plays you called.
However, my idea is that they should use the GBA to show what play you called and the assignments or routes on that play.
Or something else they could use it for is to show what play is recommended for the situation you're in.
Or they could allow you to make up your own plays on the GBA screen simiar to the way they do the old NES games where as long as you have your GBA on you can make up a few plays but if you turn it off it all disappears.  

[BlkPaladin]

EA has other franchise besides its sports. They own the Sims among others. But from all what I read it does seem they are working on some sports games. But things have a tendancy to branch into other products.

[Marcus Arillius]

Its more than likely, just a rumor. No point in hoping or speculating, EA has dropped their sports titles.  End of story.  Not to say that they can't bring them back, but for now, they're gone.  Who cares?  Not me.

[Mingesium]

Quote
Originally posted by: manunited4eva22
Once again, why have there been no other statements by any other websites?

It was mentioned. Interview with Miyamoto in London.

Quote
For example, Nintendo is heavily pursuing the connectivity between GBA and GC, and this year we are going to introduce the GB Player which lets you play GBA games on a TV via GameCube. And also, we have e-Reader in the US, so you can get data from a piece of paper. This is the unique system Nintendo is constantly trying to create and I'm positive more and more third-parties are becoming interested in these unique opportunities.

Nintendo is offering this more positively than ever. I can't really give specific examples right now, but we are working with EA on this, and developing closer ties with Namco and Sega to create these opportunities.

 

[BlkPaladin]

You know I don't know where people get this. But EA HASN'T droped their Sports titles for the Gamecube. The only developer to do that is Sega. Codemasters can be explained that they don't currently have the resources because they are trying to sell themselves so they need to look good. That means droping things that are not currently profitable.
EA only said they are concidering the possiblity of dropping the sports line. But totally droping it would be stupid considering they don't have competition anymore on the console for some of their biggest titles.
They may drop their snowboarding and lesser titles because some of them compete with internally made titles. And one of the big challenges in consoles today is going head to head with Nintendo on their own console. Because that is what the owners of Nintendo's consoles buy the console for to play Nintendo's games.

[nolimit19]

".....as several third parties are pulling support from the Gamecube, namely EA, Sega, THQ and Codemasters."


one ea didnt pull sports from the cube, they said they would pull a couple minor titles. 2 sega only canceled sports. 3 thq......i dont know what they droped, but i heard they dropped 20 games in all and 1/3 of them were for the cube.....meaning that the other 2/3 were for the other 2 consoles......meaning the cube either had the same amount games canceled for it as the xbox or ps2, or either the ps2 or xbox had more games canceled then cube. and lastly....from what i have read on the net, codemasters only droped that one game because it no longer owned the rights to it. what was it called??? Colin McRae Rally 3......this whole thing where the cube is losing all this support is dumb. there arent any significant games taht have been canceled to my knowledge.