EA Earnings Down, Talks Next-Gen Issues 22
Gamasutra reporst that EA is reporting lower than expected earnings for the third quarter and fourth quarters. They also discuss some of the problems related to next-gen consoles PS3 and Xbox 360. From the article: "Probst noted that EA seemed to be keeping its 25% game market share for 2005 on current-gen game platforms, and was looking at closer to a 30% market share on both the Xbox 360 and PSP, meaning that, though the company was doing relatively well, it was still down on expectations. Finally, the EA execs mentioned specifically: 'Our expectation is that both the PlayStation 3 and Revolution will launch in calendar '06... our expectation would be the second half of calendar '06', meaning that the next-gen installed base can start to be built up starting next year."
Reading Between The Lines (Score:1, Insightful)
They are going nuts over the PS3 devkits and are doing their best to avoid getting stuck doing 360 work. And of course they are all crazy about the Rev controller stuff.
I would assume EA is looking to scale back their 360 development. The PS2 is flying off the shelves and it hasn't even dropped to 99 bucks yet. And the PS3 is just a few months away. I can't imagine anything but huge amounts of cash from Microsoft is going to keep EA doing 360 dev outside of a few token sports ports.