EA Sports secure exclusive NFL and NFLPA license

[Cactus Drags]

ESPN is a fucking arcade game.

Regardless, the competition it brought was healthy and meant the implentation of at least a few new features.

[Clawson]

ESPN is a fucking arcade game.

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[apsham]

Madden will go the way of FIFA and Nascar.

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What are you talking about? Nascar got 5/5 and 10/10's across the board this year and was highly acclaimed.

[maddog]

Madden will go the way of FIFA and Nascar.

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What are you talking about? Nascar got 5/5 and 10/10's across the board this year and was highly acclaimed.

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[apsham]

Is the latest one with all the different types of racing EA? Nascar 2005 I think? It was getting REALLY great reviews.

[jonnycomelately]

Madden will go the way of FIFA and Nascar.

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What are you talking about? Nascar got 5/5 and 10/10's across the board this year and was highly acclaimed.

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[Guest Bluesman]

If anyone is interested, there is an online petition that you can sign, if you're interested in those types of things...

http://www.petitiononline.com/nfleacon/petition.html

[apsham]

If anyone is interested, there is an online petition that you can sign, if you're interested in those types of things...

http://www.petitiononline.com/nfleacon/petition.html

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I signed, although it'll do nothing.

I love it when people sign with things such as:

ESPN SUCKS~! - ESPN SUCKS~!

But the fact that they allow comments to be put on there isn't really helping their cause, I mean, when EA reads this and it's all. EA SUCKS, WAY TO GO ASSHOLES. They'll just take it out back and piss on it.

[livid]

Fuck the CFL, if ESPN won't be able to use NFL trademarks, which I doubt will be soon, really. They should make an Arena League game, it's a budding league in America and continues to grow. So if they can't use NFL, goto AFL and revolutionize that one too. And for the record, I like both games for certain areas.

[Jester of Death]

Well I have a gamecube so it doesn't even matter to all the gamecube owners because ESPN has neglected to use the Gamecube as a platform

So I am definetly for the exclusive license

maybe it will affect NFL broadcasts next year by them implecating some kind of simulation thing for the next play?

[Maxx]

See the thing with the NASCAR stuff was that since it was declining, people stopped buying, so EA had to make it better to increase sales.

Madden won't ever have that problem and could easily turn out the same game with one or two SHINY NEW POINTLESS FEATURES and the fans of it would be happy.

[EWRFan]

This deal pisses me off because to me, ESPN is way better. I own both, but I could score 80 points a game in Madden in the hardest difficulty with plenty of first play touchdowns, while in ESPN all my games where close. I am a big ESPN fan and I hope they do something football related, be it college football, arena, CFL or their own fake league a la Midway's Playmakers.

[Damian WayLNKe]

Also, EA just bought 20% of Ubisoft.

http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=57452

[Corizzle]

On top of that, they attempted to recieve exclusive NBA license but was turned down. Rumour is the same thing happened with the MLB license, shot down:

http://sports.ign.com/articles/574/574539p1.html?fromint=1

NBA rejects EA's big for exclusivity, plus more dealings behind the scenes in the sports game arena.

December 20, 2004 - Last week, Electronic Arts, the NFL, and Players Inc. sent shockwaves throughout the gaming industry as they announced an unprecedented five-year exclusivity partnership. But it looks like Electronic Arts had even bigger plans as they also bid on exclusive arrangements with the NBA. Sources have told me, however, that the NBA has rejected EA's initial offer.

One of the reasons is that the NBA Live series simply doesn't have a stranglehold on the market the way Madden has for years, so by signing an exclusive deal with EA, the NBA would actually be losing money. There are simply too many NBA video game properties that sell big units for the deal to make sense, from the ESPN NBA series to NBA Ballers to 989's games that are set to hit both the PS2 and PSP.

Sources aren't quite as clear in terms of potential dealings with Major League Baseball as a few publishers were worried a deal was already in place for EA to step in and take over like they did with the NFL. But after the EA/NFL deal went down, at least one publisher was able to re-up their MLB contract for three more games, so it looks like a false alarm as the only exclusive EA was able to lockup for the time being was the NFL.

In other EA news, they were able to purchase 20% of Ubisoft on Monday. What does that have to do with sports games, you might ask. Well, Ubisoft is developing the And1 street hoops game to compete with NBA Street V3. Whether or not this puts an end to the game's development, we'll have to wait and see.

[kingtut307]

As much as I'd like to see Sega say "ah screw it" and do an Arena Football game, the hardest part of any Sega football game (for me, at least), has been the passing, something that's prevalent in Arena Football.

The running game, however, is leaps and bounds better on the Sega games.

I've eagerly anticipated an Arena game ever since one was announced for the Atari Jaguar some years back.