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Forums - Microsoft - Xbox and EA Deal - Worth it? Whats next?

SweetTalia on 28 February 2014

Definitely worth it for Microsoft.. Not so sure for EA though



Praise the One.

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Subie_Greg on 28 February 2014

I think EA wanted MS to win back when the DRM plan was full speed ahead. EA backing MS was all about that DRM, same as when they back Sony with the online passes

EA wanting to kill used game sales > MS money paid

imo



Carl on 28 February 2014
JayWood2010 said:

I highly doubt MSFT would be advertising it the way they are if it would have ended up a timed exclusive.  TF is good for Xbox and MSFT is good for TF, that's why its called a partnership.  EPIC talked about this as well.  When it comes to partnerships there is perks involved for both parties.  Specially when it is a new ip picking a good partner is important and as i said before, there is no other company in the gaming business that is going to match massive marketing campaigns the way MSFT does.  It would be foolish to think only one party benifits from a partnership.  They wouldnt have agreed to it if they didnt see the perks in it.


I know what a partnership is Jay and I know what an EA partnership is like, looking at the unprecedented partnership they have with Nintendo. 

Anyway, the partnership was agreed to before the generation had even begun. Before we had any indication of how well the Xbox One or PS4 would sell... And EA made the exclusive call based on sales. When theyre looking at things now and they see that not only did it not go as they predicted, but the competing console is breaking every record in the book, do you think that they will be happy that the game is staying Xbox exclusive because of Microsofts advertising of all things?

I dont think you could deny that the game would a) reach more people if it was on PlayStation and thus b) sell even more based on a (presumably) positive word of mouth. Think Call of Duty 4 and the word of mouth that came from it.

A deal done X Years ago would be totally different to a deal done today based on current sales alone, let alone projections for the next 12 Months. I think as things currently stand, Titanfall being exclusive to Xbox has benefits for Xbox and Xbox alone when you look away from the presumed truck of money that Microsoft sent. With Gears for example, as you mentioned Epic, you could see the clear benefits because Microsoft actually published those titles. The original Mass Effect for an EA game... It was published by Microsoft.

Actually, is Titanfall actually being advertised by Microsoft? I know its in the launch ad for a few seconds, but are we actually getting ads payed for and made by Microsoft when the game launches?



                            

DerNebel on 28 February 2014
SweetTalia said:
Definitely worth it for Microsoft.. Not so sure for EA though

I'd say the complete opposite, these 5 things:

Battlefield 4 - Timed exclusive DLC
FIFA 14 - Exclusive DLC
FIFA 14 - Mass bundled
Peggle 2 - Timed exclusive
Plants vs Zombies: Garden Warfare - Timed exclusive

I doubt very much that those were worth it for MS, especially the Fifa thing seems to have been completely uneffective, EA on the other hand probably got some decent cash from MS for these.

Titanfall remains to be seen, I think on this one EA might be losing, since they're losing a lot of potential customers, but that depends on how much MS paid for that deal. For MS it will be worth it if it helps give the X1 its momentum back, which I'm not sure it'll do for more then a couple weeks.



J_Allard on 28 February 2014

No way to know without knowing everything involved content wise and everything MS paid/kicked back to EA.

I see people constantly talking about how EA expected the Xbone to outsell PS4.. when did they say that? They can have internal projections that make the Xbone deals viable that don't have to entail Xbone selling more. Price difference and launch territories pretty much ruled out the Xbone selling more.



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Seece on 28 February 2014

SIM CITY PLEASE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!



 

Carl on 28 February 2014
Seece said:
SIM CITY PLEASE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


I can see exclusive content for Sims 4, but any new Sim City on any console would be just out of this World



                            

Seece on 28 February 2014
Carl2291 said:
Seece said:
SIM CITY PLEASE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


I can see exclusive content for Sims 4, but any new Sim City on any console would be just out of this World

Use to love the sims on consoles but pretty meh on it now.

I don't care if Sim City is exclusive or not, I just reallly want it on XB1, all the cloud nonsense? Match made in heaven!



 

kitler53 on 28 February 2014
ethomaz said:

kitler53 said:

eh, not necessarily true.   if MS is willing to pay enough EA will take the money.  From a business perspective "a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush".  businesses dont' like risk and if MS is willing to pay for the entire development cost (just as an example) that project is then no risk to EA and probably going to get green lit.   it just depends on how much money MS is willing to spend.  ...but the price goes up the more ps4 outsells xbox as MS has to cover the opportunity costs as well.

Do you think eg. Titanfall can sell 2 milllion copies on PS4? 2m at $40 = $800 million... I guess publishers received 20-40% of the money... so $160-320 million to EA with 2 million sales (look I removed all the devs costs and everything else)... I think it won't sell only 2 million on PS4 after the grow of userbase and a lot of sales will come from $60 and not $49.

The MS deal is to cover the development of the game like $100 million...

I don't see EA making this deal again... bigger the userbase = bigger the profit from the game... so I don't see MS paying $500 milllion to exclusivity when PS4 reach 10 million user base for example.

$500m for a game will kill the game division because hardly any company will cover that with the profit made by the Game divisions... console business didn't give that money to the fair.

like i said, 100M in hand is worth 200M in the bush...

these deals were made A) before knowing which (if any) console would sell well B) before EA had any idea if titanfall would resonate with the consumer or not

hind sight is always 20/20 but i'll bet the guarentee of profitability looked very reassuring to an EA that didn't know what it knows now.   knowing now that ps4 is doing amazing and that titanfall is resonating with consumers titanfall 2 exclusivity will be A LOT more expensive.   ..probably out of MS's price range.  MS advantage was buying up the rights at the most oportunistic time.



kitler53 on 28 February 2014
J_Allard said:
No way to know without knowing everything involved content wise and everything MS paid/kicked back to EA.

I see people constantly talking about how EA expected the Xbone to outsell PS4.. when did they say that? They can have internal projections that make the Xbone deals viable that don't have to entail Xbone selling more. Price difference and launch territories pretty much ruled out the Xbone selling more.


no one in the industry outright said it (to the best of my knowledge) but seriously, is there anyone anywhere that didn't think MS was going to dominate the industry as of may 20th, the day before the official unvealing.  the then industry expectation matched with the fact that EA didn't show to the ps4 reveal but was present in force at the MS reveal really tells more than any statement could. 

actions > words