There are no rumours backing this up whatsoever. That said, I've been thinking for a while that EA could have a shot of being a console dev. They're also buying up devs all the time.

Some points of discussion:

1)What are EA's major franchises? Can 1st party titles like Fifa,Madden etc. be enough for them?

2)Financial risks and implications?

3)Affect this would have on Console Wars?

4) Are they big enough (compare for instance with Sega's size pre-Dreamcast)

etc.

PLEAZE STAY CIVIL

*peace*

if EA enters the console war...PS360 are doomed...Wii might survive

Well they have MANY studios now......so they can

They have FIFA, NFS, MAdden which MANY would literally buy a console for

Then now they have bioware & many other studio's

ofcourse The Sims could be a killer app on their console

there's nothing but their own imagination & wallet stopping them, as far as "1st party studio's go" an EA console could have strong ones!

misleading title

lol Dr.Grass

The Sims, Fifa, Madden, Tiger, Grand Slam Tennis and a ton of other sports, Burnout, Need for Speed, Timesplitters (?), The Godfather.....

Yeah they perhaps could, but the thing is, there'll always be more money in selling millions across 6 consoles than there will be selling less on a console you spent hundreds of millions to develop.

EA would have a ton of exclusives right out of the gate:

Madden, FIFA, NBA live, NHL, etc. As well as a few other games I can't bother to look up or think of.

p.s. EA has exclusive rights to the NFL so EA's console would be the only one with an NFL game. Also FIFA > PES and EA's NHL > 2K NHL.

but they wouldn't have MArio, Halo, GTA, Gran Turismo, Final Fantasy

It would be a monopoly of the worst kind.

This pretty much ends the thread.

If I were to add anything, it would be to say that I don't think they could even afford to give it a go as I think considering their current financial situation R&D costs would kill them.