Electronic Arts Blew this Console Cycle?
- Scribbled on January 11th, 2009 by Jonah Falcon
- Filed in Industry News
As we pondered Electronic Arts’ possible foray into console manufacturing for the second time in its life, industry analysts think EA blew this console cycle in terms of game development in a big way.
With the failures of Mirror’s Edge and Dead Space in sales, the decline of the Need for Speed series and the subsequent closing of Black Box, Spore underperforming, the inability to buy Take Two and its golden properties (2K Sports, EA Sports’ rival and, of course, the Grand Theft Auto license) and the massive layoffs, it seems EA was more or less irrelevent in 2008.
Right now, they’re pinning their hopes on Star Wars: The Old Republic and Mass Effect 2 this year, as well as the 2010 editions of their EA Sports titles. Will they survive?
January 12th, 2009 at 4:04 am
Awesome bait.
It all depends on what you term as a failure. Dead Space has built a good following and when the sequels eventually get released, they’ll sell a bucketload.
Mirror’s Edge was an infuriating experiment, and I have no doubt that a sequel will be forthcoming for that.
Need for Speed was dire this year. Spore was a good game that was ridiculously over-hyped and didn’t need anything like the nineteen bajillion years of development time that it had.
The failure to take over Take Two doesn’t reflect on the company’s position in the market at all. If you even have the muscle to seriously attempt to buy the company behind what is probably the biggest game franchise in the World right now, then I’m relatively sure that you’ll last another year.
Oh, and FIFA 2009 has absolutely dominated the charts in the UK and Europe on all formats, in the same way that Madden generally does in the US. They’ve just announced three new MySims titles, and have The Sims 3 and countless expansion packs on the way.
Wait…isn’t The Sims the biggest selling PC game of all time?
What exactly causes you to think that the biggest third-party publisher in gaming WON’T survive in 2009, again? Poor sales of three titles out of probably 40 in 2008?
January 13th, 2009 at 11:40 pm
Which is why EA’s been laying off 10% of their workforce and closing studios down?