Electronic Arts, ESPN ink exclusive 15-year deal

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[UPDATE] ESPN brand and programming to surface in EA sports titles on all platforms; Sega Sports and Visual Concepts thrown for a loss, again.
Electronic Arts broke the calm of a national holiday today by announcing a licensing deal of epic proportions. For the next fifteen years, EA will be the sole licensee of the ESPN brand in the area of sports games, which will include console, handheld, PC, and wireless games.


Games with leverage the ESPN brand will make their way to retail sometime during calendar year 2006, "upon the conclusion of ESPN’s existing video game licensing commitments."

The news is the second blow to current ESPN license-holder Sega (and its Visual Concepts development studio). It recently lost the right to publish sports games using the NFL license when EA scooped that license up. Now, it loses the right to the ESPN brand as well.

In a statement released today, the world's largest game publisher said, "The relationship will include established EA SPORTS franchises--which will be enhanced by ESPN telecast, print and online content--as well as new sports games to be published by EA based on ESPN media properties."

Addressing ways EA intends to leverage not only ESPN programming but also technology, EA's vice president of marketing Frank Gibeau told GameSpot today, "When everything is online, and we’re going to be able to have live feeds, there's a lot of sports information content from ESPN that's really going to expand what EA Sports already does."

When asked to elaborate, Gibeau decline to go into specifics, but did say, "I think you can start to think about some of the core technology capabilities that are going to come online in the next few years with portability, wireless...you can think about the live feeds that can start to come in from ESPN inside of the games." For example, "being able to set rosters based on that night's rosters, brought to you by ESPN."

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:lol:

Go EA :box:

EDIT: Forgot the link

It's a shame. Sega's games were a shitload better than EA's. :(

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Originally Posted by Xilo

It's a shame. Sega's games were a shitload better than EA's. :(

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They sure were. :(

I actually liked the 2K series' basketball and football better than EA's.

Everyone's just used to Madden and EA for that matter.

I remember when NBA Live was total shit, there were still people saying it was good.

To any competitor's out there, you must make a game that is leaps and bounds better to beat the EA sweatshop.

yeh but 15 YEARS!!!!
theres a hell of a lot of time for improvement there...
Madden 2004 is mad i enjoyed that game till there was no more enjoying to do...

are you kidding Sega are fucking dumbass idiots

for a start there games are like arcade games

and they decide OK lets release our NFL game in January in Australia and Europe when the season is nearly over with June rosters!! no wonder they sell there games for half price too

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Originally Posted by Adster

are you kidding Sega are fucking dumbass idiots

for a start there games are like arcade games

and they decide OK lets release our NFL game in January in Australia and Europe when the season is nearly over with June rosters!! no wonder they sell there games for half price too

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What game are you referring to?

The basketball is just the opposite. Sega's is more sim, EA's is more arcade.

The football is neck and neck but Sega's is no way like an arcade game.

As far as release dates....you're right...that is fucking stupid. :dry:

People forget that reason EA went for the ESPN brand was because the Madden brand contract is up.

As long as Ubisoft doesn't become a pussy developer because of EA I'm happy :)

But ya 15 years, that's a long time for improvement. Don't diss games that aren't even out yet.

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Originally Posted by cpt_azad

But ya 15 years, that's a long time for improvement. Don't diss games that aren't even out yet.

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Amen to that... :D

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Originally Posted by Adster

Sega are fucking dumbass idiots

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possibly the dumbest statement i've read today. sega are an awesome game company. who gives a crap about when aussies get their games? try buying your pop-culture product in comparable quantities to what we do, then they'll place a higher priority on timely game/movie/music/etc releases for australia. :P

back on topic: EA IS THE DEATH OF CREATIVITY. okay.

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Originally Posted by 3RA1N1AC

possibly the dumbest statement i've read today. sega are an awesome game company. who gives a crap about when aussies get their games? try buying your pop-culture product in comparable quantities to what we do, then they'll place a higher priority on timely game/movie/music/etc releases for australia.

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Ouch!!! :ohmy:

Good point though. ;)

well. this may just be speculation, but i imagine that europe & australia get a lower priority 'cause they don't buy nearly as much as japanese & americans do. money talks. that, and they have a different television format which adds time to the conversion process since the games are all originally designed for jpn/usa TVs.

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Originally Posted by 3RA1N1AC

possibly the dumbest statement i've read today. sega are an awesome game company. who gives a crap about when aussies get their games? try buying your pop-culture product in comparable quantities to what we do, then they'll place a higher priority on timely game/movie/music/etc releases for australia. :P

back on topic: EA IS THE DEATH OF CREATIVITY. okay.

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and thats the most fucking ignorant thing Ive read today

there are 1000s of other games that US and japsn don't get that PAL gamers do

oh btw madden is teh highest selling game in Australia each yeah so don't give me that shit that Australia don't like US Football

Have You Tried Imports And Piracy

imports uselss NTSC will not play on PAL consoles

and as for piracy yeah need to be modded ffs

from a different forum:

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Report from Europe
The few games that are actually released over here are hideously overpriced and obnoxiously underfeatured. Oh and they're released a year late because the French, Spanish and German dudes refuse to learn English. Present company excluded of course. Anyone who has a non-trivial interest in games has been modding their systems since the SNES days.
End report.

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could this be the answer!

I almost positive the reason ESPN inked an exclusive deal was because EA now has an exclusive contract with the NFL.

The football wars are over.

This is very horrible for competition. It's bad enough that each new Madden that came out offered just an updated roster and stats and very little new innovation. Every year folks ante up their $50 "subscription fee" for a paltry, scant raising of the bar.

Now EA, which has paid millions, has ESPN and NFL licenses for a considerable amount of time. I wonder how much money they have left to "raise the bar".
Better yet, how much effort would they even need to put forth in earning the consumers money now that they hold or basically took the cards away from the other players? :dry:

well. okay. a lot of people buy sports games because they want the simulation aspect, right? the real league teams and fields and rosters and coaches, etc. they wanna get that "wow, it feels like i'm really managing the Pistons!" feeling or whatever. but maybe there's room for something else? maybe it's possible to do good sports games, even more creative and fun sports games, without all of that "officially licensed" baloney.

maybe it's TIME for something new, to add a breath of fresh air to the sports genre. remember Mutant League Football? back in 1993, EA actually released a game with frickin' SKELETONS AND OGRES PLAYING FOOTBALL. or those baseball & football games with ROBOTS? i think if somebody were to do games like that now, and make 'em well-designed of course, it could totally be a successful niche for people who are getting bored with realistic sports sims, and for people who normally wouldn't buy sports games. how about a sports game where steroid abuse and beating up the other team's coach is ENCOURAGED AND REWARDED?... you can't do THAT in an officially licensed game. smaller developers need to come up with some wild ideas that EA just isn't offering anymore, if they want to hold onto a slice of the market. EA keeps placing easy, sure bets nowadays: "everybody wants to buy a fully licensed sports game with players from real leagues." but you never know what kind of weird stuff people will buy unless you take a risk and put out something creative and different.

http://www.neo-geo.com/snk/screensho...0baseball2.gif

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