The example you gave is a bad one, since automatic replaces clutch.  Plus... it really does make life easier.  Just talk to the million of Americans who simply can't drive stick shift.

It's a strange statement to say, since it covers so much ground it's neither correct or wrong.  Yeah, many things have become more complex, but not necessarily more difficult.  The ease of use of the iPhone is a good example.  For games though, a lot of times it translates into cumbersome and unnecessary control, like the NHL series.  That is something we don't want, and certainly not something one needs to live with!

iight I got tired of this, ALMOST EVERY GAME EA HAS RELEASED SUCKS there I said it, dawg look the only good game is nba live tha sit every tin else is crud.

Excellent post as always, Sullla. I've actually recently (and idly) wondered if any company (IBM and other companies that lend components to production) is making money on the PS3 -- I assume Insomniac is in the black, but I'd strongly suspect that every other company involved with the PS3 right now is losing a good deal of money. 

 I took Black back from to the Hollywood Video without even getting to the first level. Make me watch FMVS that are that long?! I think not.  I used to think that PS2 games would be "too hard" for me to pick up but now that I've played them I think that I'm pretty good at them.  Back in the day I thought it was hard to play Street Fighter 2 Turbo with just X,Y,A,B and L1 and L2  (Super Nintendo).  

Your first paragraph about developing not paying off on the 360 is complete bullshit.  Try taking a look at the actual numbers instead of making blanket statements.  You simply looked at the total operating expenses without looking at how many titles and how many platforms were being supported and where exactly profits were being generated and lost.  In fact I find it odd that you don't include statements EA made that gave credit to several 360 titles for increasing profit.  How about giving us a breakdown of EA's expenditures for each platform vs. the profits generated from each.  What you don't have that information?  Then how can you pass judgment on something without having even information as critical and basic as that?

EA in increasing development for the Wii which is a no-brainer but the have also stated they want to remain the top third party on the 360 and PS3.

As for Take-Two their "hardcore" games sell extremely well, their problems stem from idiotic mistakes like the hot coffee and manhunt 2 fiascos, cancelling games in development, legal fees (for a stock options investigation, lawsuits, etc), etc.  The company was simply run incredibly poorly but to blame it completely on "hardcore" games instead of bad management is well bullshit.

Wow, vehement responses from some of our posters. Seems like I hit a nerve here.

vizunary, I'm not disagreeing with you. This being a sales website, I'm simply discussing the business side of things, and no third-party has been as successful in that regard as Electronic Arts. If you don't like their games, there's nothing wrong with that - I also think that many of their recent franchises have grown stagnant. I just think it's silly to rain abuse down on the head of a company that consistently dominates the sales charts, and turns a profit every year. I think we'll just have to agree to disagree on this one.

Legend11 - dude, you need to calm down a bit. Did I say that no one has created profitable games for the 360? No, not at all, and you could certainly come up with examples to the contrary. What I said was that EA's costs have been rising at a very noticeable rate over the past few years, and almost all of that increase has gone into rising development costs. I don't doubt that some titles have proved to be very profitable; I'm merely point out that the general trend has been rising development costs, decreasing profits:

Now there's no guarantee that those are two are related, but it does seem likely, doesn't it? EA specifically states that their marketing expenses (p.114) remained constant at 15% of overall costs, and ditto for administrative costs (slight increase from 7% to 9% of costs). But R&D costs jump from 26% to 34% of net revenue! (p.115) It's difficult to escape the conclusion that higher development costs are significantly driving up expenses - and hurting the overall bottom line.

You asked for a specific breakdown of expenditures per platform versus profits for each. (Jeez, is this becoming a homework assignment now? ) This is very difficult to find, because EA provides lists only for revenue generated by each console, without mentioning the costs associated with each one. (You can find the revenue listing on p. 112, for the curious.) It's impossible to make year on year comparisons here between any of the new consoles, because the 360 was so new in March 2006 and the PS3 and Wii didn't even exist. About the only thing I'd mention is that EA's Wii revenue was non-existent for this past fiscal year (less than 2% of the total), so that kind of provides indirect evidence for what I was saying previously. EA did 50% more revenue in sales from the PS3 compared to Wii (94m versus 65m) - I can't prove it, because EA doesn't list costs by console, but I'm going to guess that the costs associated with developing for PS3 were probably significantly higher than that for Wii.

About the best I can find on this issue is EA's justification for why their R&D costs are skyrocketing:

"We have incurred increased costs during this transition as we have continued to develop and market new titles for certain prior-generation video game platforms while also making significant investments in products for the new generation platforms. As we move through the life cycle of prior-generation consoles, we will continue to devote significant resources to the development of prior-generation titles while at the same time spending more for the new generation of platforms and technology. As a result of these factors, we expect research and development expenses to increase in fiscal 2008." (emphasis added)

Bingo. EA has been paying significantly higher development costs, and they expect them to keep going up for the forseeable future. I mean, it's not really that complicated. Of course, EA's not about to cut off support for any platforms in the forseeable future; they've always developed for everyone (except the Dreamcast, but that's a long story) and done quite well that way. I never suggested that EA would be cutting off development for the 360 or PS3, did I? What I did was explain why adding more resources for the Wii makes a great deal of sense from a fiscal standpoint.

I only bring up Take-Two as an example because the company gets tons of praise from Internet fans, but their company is a total mess. Everyone hates EA, and everyone loves Take-Two. But which would you invest your money in? (This is not meant to be a "hardcore" versus "casual" discussion.)

I'm tired of digging up numbers now; you're welcome to do some hunting and add to the discussion. I hear a lot of people making claims, but not a lot of reading the actual numbers put out by each company.

EA does produce a lot of crap but some games they make are very good also I suppose its what happens when they produce software in such quantity as they do.

will My Sims be shown at E3?

Legend, you need to calm down. I'm sure you're aware that a platform-by-platform listing of expenses and profits is not available, nor will it ever be; however, given that EA publicly stated that they were investing heavily in next generation platforms (and particularly the PS3), one can reasonably assume that this is where most of the expenditures were, and this is where most of the decreased profitability has occured. Sullla has provided significant evidence to back these claims; you've provided no evidence of any kind.

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/content_page.php?aid=25380
http://www.cubed3.com/news/7832/1/Majesco_Profits_from_Nintendo
http://ds.ign.com/articles/783/783710p1.html

By contrast, companies such as EA and Take 2 that have publicly announced the "next generation" platforms as their main area of focus have seen significantly declining profits or, in the case of Take 2, significant losses.

http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/20070508/electronic-arts-earnings-shares.htm
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070611/bs_nm/taketwo_results_dc

If you'd like to insist that this is a coincidence, then please provide evidence to explain how that could be so. As Sullla said, I think the writing is on the wall: the next generation platforms are not, by and large, particularly profitable, and this conclusion is further bolstered by the bevy of statements from EA, Take 2, Capcom, Sega, and several other major companies, stating that they are decreasing development on PS3/360 and increasing development on Wii. Why would they do this if it wasn't more profitable? I'll leave it to the President of Take 2 to put this in as simple of terms as possible:

"To be perfectly frank, I don't think it takes a rocket scientist to realize what's going on with Wii and DS. I will tell you that very quickly we turned to both 2K and to Rockstar and said guys, we need a DS strategy and a Wii strategy and we are working on it. As we get into the next quarter and into budget season for 2008, everybody in this company is completely focused on it."

http://www.joystiq.com/2007/06/18/take-two-chair-talks-wii-and-ds-focus/

OK, normally I'd say EA Sports produces crap, but they took Tiger Woods in new directions (PC with mouse movement for swing, and console with analog for swing - contrast that with the old "click-click-click" input method) and don't even get me started with Fight Night - the controls there are absolutely, hands-down, bar none, the best implementation for a boxing game ever.

I'll try to change my writing style since people seem to think I was upset when I wrote my previous reply and I wasn't at all... I guess sometimes I come off as sounding too aggressive.