In Depth Reactions to EA / ESPN Deal

Gamespot has a piece up about industry analyst reactions to the EA / ESPN deal. They span the gamut from appreciation for a smart business move to a frustration with a company throwing its weight around. From the article: "Has the fat lady finally sung in the sports-game wars? Should all the other publishers pack it in and head for the showers? Opinions are mixed, but this week's news was one of the year's biggest wins--for Electronic Arts. Now, the industry girds for a string of earnings calls where executives at publicly traded companies--EA and others--will surely face a grilling from curious analysts."

Re:Possible Outcome

[RealityMogul]

This years wasn't that bad. I actually played it for 3 minutes before deleting it.

I'd consider buying that Madden 95 sega controller they sell at Wal Mart though. I'm sure they did lots of research and determined that was the last year they put out a good Madden game.

Re:Old Times

[faust2097]

Midway is already working on a new Blitz title, and according to them they're happy to not have the NFL license because the league asked them to tone down the hard hitting and trash talk and now they have no such restrictions.

Re:Time to reinvent the wheel

[Marc_Hawke]

Your wish is my command.

Chaos League [chaosleaguegame.com]

Re:NFL/NBA/NHL PA

[Anonymous Coward]

I believe the article stated that the NFL agreement was with both the NFL and Players, Inc. So the NFLPA (via Players, Inc.) is already in on this.

Re:Sega won't go away

[ahmusch]

Sure they make plenty -- provided one is plenty.

EA is currently the only game in town for a college football product, and even that is restricted only to consoles. One cannot purchase a college football game for a PC -- the *only* college football game is available on Gamecube, Xbox, and PS2.

One can get FIFA and UEFA games on PC (in the US!), but no college football. Never mind that there are millions of fans of college football who pack stadiums on autumn Saturdays.

It's bordering on criminal. I imagine that EA bought out exclusive NCAA rights in 2002 or 2003, because I don't remember having seen the NCAA Gamebreaker or NCAA 2K(n) games for a couple of years now.