Oh I know, I just mean GTAV’s yearly revenue now is hardly going to be at it’s prime even if it’s relatively consistent now - and so might not represent the bigger picture between the franchises. Not that I doubt sports is big.
Well, with cod surely more people in my country will be interested on xbox, basically it doesnt exist here, and I dont want to use a vpn
Well, FIFA is the game. I do wonder how EA will fare with EA Sports FC without FIFA name attached. Will be interesting.
I honestly think it will be fine but there will probably be a dip in sales
It’ll definitely be interesting to watch, I think so long as EA can get EA Sports FC out before Fifa can find a competitor they’ll be fine. As soon as they establish themselves to the casual audience as the same game people have been buying year on year it’ll be a huge uphill battle for Fifa to ever compete.
I honestly don’t know. Fifa feels big because of the name recognition to me but EA could mitigate damage on the marketing. My question more comes down to who will grab the name rights, honestly wouldn’t be shock if Sony did just to secure marketing rights
Hard to say, Fifa has to convince a publisher to pay them 250 million dollars a year just for the chance to compete with EA on a firmly established and dominant sports franchise. Or no, more than that - someone who is willing to pay 250 million dollars per year, accepts the additional restrictions Fifa wanted to put on EA’s ability to monetize the franchise outside the game (merch, tournaments etc.) and doesn’t really think about how the deal fell apart with EA because Fifa decided they wanted paid double what they’d gotten before.
I mean for the game itself, for all people criticise sport games for not improving each year - EA has still been iterating on their formula and expanding the feature set for 30 odd years by this point. That is a very large hill for a competitor to climb, and worse it would still take years for a serious competitor to actually put their rival game out by which point EA will have continued releasing EA Sports FC year on year continuing to set themselves as the standard to the casual audience. The only realistic chance Fifa has of getting a competitor out sooner is either rushing something to market (which, probably won’t end well) or to make a deal with Konami and rebrand their f2p football game (which, probably won’t end well. It was supposed to be pretty bad).
It’s certainly not impossible Fifa will find someone who takes the time and puts together a game that can really compete with EA on quality and draw away an audience frustrated with EA Football FC’s issues but it’s not gonna be easy for them.
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With the way that Microsoft/Xbox view the market, their position and how Sony is approaching things, another publisher may very well be right around the corner as in several months, not a year plus.
It seems they are frusterated with how effective the strategy has been for keeping games off of gamepass. With their language and take, I see either a massive publisher like EA/Take 2 or several smaller like Bandai and Sega/Capcom.
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I don’t expect Microsoft will go after another major publisher such as EA or Take Two anytime soon unless they are really struggling or if a company such as Tencent, Meta, Apple, or Google were looking to acquire them.
I think if Microsoft were to go after another publisher it would be one such as Sega, Capcom, Remedy, Paradox Interactive, Focus Entertainment, or CD Project Red.
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Agreed. Activision will be one of the most expensive buyouts in tech history, people need to chill if they think they will do it again anytime soon.
Those studios you listed are who I think they will look at in a couple of years.
Nobody is gonna wait years for the next acquisition. Market waits for no one - big players are still sleeping so they should strike iron while it is hot. Granted aside T2 I don’t see anybody else on the west (the only big western publisher without streaming service)
MS should acquire T2 next.
Imagine MS owning The Elder Scrolls, Call of Duty, and GTA ?
Xbox would own the video game market, they would be untouchable!
Add in Zynga + King and you’d own the mobile space too!
Strategically Take-2 should be next imo
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Not saying this is the case but it is a possibility worth considering. Maybe FIFA just wanted to get out of their contract with EA for one reason or another so they charged a stupid price to get out of it. Not saying this is the case or even that I think it is, it just feels worth considering
I mean people may disagree and that is fine but I think they are talking to multiple parties while we speak. Not going to say who cos I don’t know (I can throw some guesses out there, my top guesses would be EA, T2, Ubisoft, SEGA and Capcom in no specific order) but I don’t think they are even close to done. On top of the fustration from Sony there is the fear that someone else could swip them up like Amazon for example, not saying it will happen (granted I do believe all the big techs will start buying shit up but it is a possibility non the less)
I mean it could, we shouldn’t act like it can’t but conversy we shouldn’t act like MS next buy will be on a similar level. Regardless at this point everyone is going to be a smaller target except Nintendo if you want to go there
I think EA is a slightly better move but T2 would be my 2nd get if EA was off the table (ignoring Nintendo). They have the sports games even if they are not the level of fifa or madden, they have GTA which is just a powerhouse, they have rockstar which is arguably the most popular/beloved studio/studios in gaming, a ton of franchises which could be revived like midnight club or xcom and Zynga is massive in mobile and getting them along side king would be a huge push into mobile. When I went over what MS wanted in their acquisitions (longjevity, high player count, e rated content, push in Japan and franchises with strong legacy) and scored each section from 0 to 5 T2 also scored 3 (EA was 2nd and Nintendo was 1st, if you stance doesn’t believe Nintendo is possible they were 2nd)
i am really curious what talks were put on hold due to ABK deal.
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I honestly don’t think any were necessarily put on hold, talks can take months or even years to complete and unless MS was nearly the end of an agreement I don’t think they would see a put in pausing them. Delay or slowing down talks I could see though. A lot of rumours on T2 were floating around though, I don’t believe these rumours because literally everyone except ABK, EA and Nintendo were rumoured acquisition (yes I even saw some for Sony being MS next purchase) but if you believe them there you go
I would argue EA are just as likely as T2 (if they go for another big publisher in the next few years).
FIFA (now FC) is practically on the same stature as GTA but is released annually instead of each generation. When you throw in other franchises like Sims, Madden and Need for Speed etc I’d argue they have bigger franchises than T2.
Outside of GTA the next biggest franchise is NBA 2K and then Red Dead?
you also have stuff like apex, battlefield, madden ect. which are all massive and a mountine of smaller or dead franchises like dead space, burnout, mass effect, dragon age, titanfall, Plants vs Zombies, Mirrors edge, medal of honour, skate, spore, ect. which could all be revived or expanded with good marketing and the aid of game pass
I would argue WWE, they have Zynga too who has a ton of big mobile games. They also own Bioshocked, civilization, Carnival Games, Mathia, XCOM, Max Panye ect. which are not in the same league as the other stuff but could be expanded and isn’t small by any means. I agree with putting EA above T2 but its very close for me (like even when I went over what MS is looking for in an acquisitions in gaming it was a 1.5 point difference, very small, but EA was on top)
Yeah there’s plenty of IP to work on with both, forgot about Apex which is probably one of EA’s biggest IP’s right now. I really enjoy T2 games I just think EA are technically bigger.
Looking at franchises (where you have to pay) both Sims and FIFA have done over 200 million copies, GTA is T2’s only franchise to do that.
EA also has PopCap, Glu, Playdemic, EA Mobile and EA Maxis. They aren’t on the same level as Zynga but still make some popular mobile games.
and I agree, I am just saying it is close
yeah all 3 big 3rd party publishers (T2, EA and ABK) are all big in mobile in one way or another, ABK obviously owns king which is arguably the largest mobile game publisher along side having stuff like CoD mobile, EA owns quite a few mobile game studios (and as far as I can tell they are the only one from the 3 to actually expanding on them into the console/PC space with stuff like zuma being on consoles and even stuff like PvZ garden warfare but I am not certain) along side stuff like apex on mobile and T2 obviously owns zynga now but they also owns Nordeus, Playdots and social point as well
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Those are great points. EA also owns Battlefield which would give MS a monopoly on the FPS genre.
A game franchise I see a lot people sleeping on is the critically acclaimed Bioshock series. The franchise has sold 37 million copies with only 3 installments and with T2 making a dedicated studio for the franchise in Cloud Chamber, I wouldn’t be shocked ( no pun intended ) to see Bioshock outsell every EA game that’s not tied to a Disney or Sports IP.
But I agree you can’t really go wrong either way haha
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