EA And Xbox Live - Good Job MS.

**Xbox Owner** · 03-19-2003

EA And Xbox Live
By Mike Viscel -- Staff Writer
Published 10:03 AM CST March 19, 2003

Our colleagues over at Gameindustrybiz.com recently posted an interesting article regarding the European launch of Microsoft's 'Xbox Live' online gaming network. The article is a great read and sheds a lot of light on Electronic Arts' recent decision to pull support for Xbox Live. Check it out:

The reasons behind EA's decision not to support Live haven't been elaborated upon publicly by the publisher, but it's safe to say that it all boils down to a matter of control. Microsoft wants to keep as much of the marketing, branding, billing and hosting of Xbox Live under its control as possible; EA, however, wants to be able to change all of these aspects around in order to suit itself.

Microsoft's argument would be that this would potentially be detrimental to the quality of the Xbox Live service to end users. They're not wrong, either; sources have indicated to gi.biz that one of EA's demands is that they should be allowed to turn off servers for old versions of games as soon as they release new versions. So, for example, your copy of FIFA 2003 would stop working on Xbox Live as soon as FIFA 2004 showed up - a handy way to force punters to upgrade for EA, but not a great reflection on the Xbox Live service as a whole.

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Now, I'm not saying having EA on Xbox Live is a bad thing, but look what they're trying to do...

**Snoopy7548** · 03-19-2003

yea. its all about money these days. all the companies dont care about the consumer, they care about how much money they make.

**l Maximus l** · 03-19-2003

Yeah...I saw that article in another thread...and it really spells out clearly what EA's intentions are. That's one thing that irritates me so much about EA. Why not keep great games and even classic masterpeices on-line? It doesn't make sense at all and clearly exposes EA's greed.

Now, I'm a business man and all....and, I understand that they don't develop games just for kicks and giggles...they are in it for money, of course. But, it all boils down to the end user....us. If a company provides awesome services, they'll return. This is one reason why XBox Live is so successful. EA or no EA, XBL rocks!

**Variation-XBA** · 03-19-2003

This is sure to spawn some more "h8 EA" threads :P And yea...fuels my hatred fire for EA as well

**MerimacHamwich** · 03-19-2003

As I said in the other thread about this, EA doesn't realize that Microsoft is not going to have another competitor (company) get any sort of control over thier product/service. I mean, I gaurantee that EA would not let Microsoft have any sort of control over their servers if Microsoft brought out a game to work on them. Yet, for some reason, EA thinks they should be able to have all the control they want. They are simply morons, nothing more to it.

**BCan** · 03-20-2003

Oh no, I won't be able to play the yearly updates to the same game they basically released in 1904, that has little or no graphical improvements.......

Doesn't fuss me in the slightest - you realise that XBL actually makes most of the reasons to buy a new EA Sports game obsolete - you can update the rosters or other competitors, which is usually most of the changes to their games....

**pickle** · 03-21-2003

Originally posted by Xbox Owner
sources have indicated to gi..... blah blah blah

Don't be so naive.

The "source" was most likely an MS employee and therefore would have an incredibly biased viewpoint.

Plus.. and MOST IMPORTANTLY ... it would be GREAT to have EA hosting servers for games!!!

The more central servers the better:
1. the less you have to rely on direct xbox hosting (like in xbconnect)
2. no host box advantage
3. better chance of getting good pings

and most importantly... COMPETITION MEANS LOWER PRICES!!! If MS gets you by the b*lls and are the only server in town they will be able to charge TONS. Once Halo 2 comes out I can guarentee that xbox live fees will NOT be $50/yr.

**Xbox Owner** · 03-21-2003

Originally posted by pickle
Don't be so naive.

The "source" was most likely an MS employee and therefore would have an incredibly biased viewpoint.

Plus.. and MOST IMPORTANTLY ... it would be GREAT to have EA hosting servers for games!!!

The more central servers the better:
1. the less you have to rely on direct xbox hosting (like in xbconnect)
2. no host box advantage
3. better chance of getting good pings

and most importantly... COMPETITION MEANS LOWER PRICES!!! If MS gets you by the b*lls and are the only server in town they will be able to charge TONS. Once Halo 2 comes out I can guarentee that xbox live fees will NOT be $50/yr.

are you on crack or something?

**pickle** · 03-21-2003

Originally posted by Xbox Owner
are you on crack or something?

About?

Oh wait... you are probably a 12 year old zit faced kid.

**Xbox Owner** · 03-21-2003

"it would be GREAT to have EA hosting servers for games!!! "

did you even read the article??

**LTM360** · 03-21-2003

Originally posted by pickle
About?

Oh wait... you are probably a 12 year old zit faced kid.

Ok...maybe im not getting the 'joke' (If there is one), but what the hell is wrong with being zit faced? It's not our ****ing fault!

**MerimacHamwich** · 03-21-2003

I have to ask the same thing.

Why would there be competition for a service provided, devised, owned and operated by one company. This a product that Microsoft owns. This isn't like a Broadband provider.

Microsoft has central servers for games. If you don't want to play a game hosted by another person then simply join a Microsoft dedicated server.

As well, there currently is no fee for Xbox Live. You have to pay 50$ to get the headset and other hardware used with Xbox Live but you get the actual service for free.

Also, Halo 2 will not dictate what price Microsoft sets for the Xbox Live service. There are many other games out there. The demand for Xbox Live may rise when Halo 2 comes out. However, I think that would most likely mean a lowering in the price for the service. The more people you have paying, the less you can charge per person/account.

**Kortiz** · 03-21-2003

Originally posted by Maximus-XBA
Yeah...I saw that article in another thread...and it really spells out clearly what EA's intentions are. That's one thing that irritates me so much about EA. Why not keep great games and even classic masterpeices on-line? It doesn't make sense at all and clearly exposes EA's greed.

Now, I'm a business man and all....and, I understand that they don't develop games just for kicks and giggles...they are in it for money, of course. But, it all boils down to the end user....us. If a company provides awesome services, they'll return. This is one reason why XBox Live is so successful. EA or no EA, XBL rocks!

first off nobody in their right mind would pay to play a sports game online.

**XBOX Dude** · 03-21-2003

is it just me or does anyone get a warm feeling that microsoft is going hard core about there quality and customer satisfaction, they may be just protecting there own asses but it would have been much easier for them to take the money and keep EA's little secret under raps

**BCan** · 03-21-2003

Everyone knows that if EA had control of their own servers, as mentioned in a similar thread on here, they would remove Live support soon as the new versions were released, to force people to buy the new game, or force them to use XBConnect..

MS is not wanting to allow that, so it has lead to EA not doing Live at all.....