Madden Revolution – Throw, Kick, Shove

I am liking all the Revolution Exclusives. Finally there will be a reason to buy a console with its own games that cannot be played on any other.

nice to see support from the big players.

nice to see support from the big players.

i hope everyone sees the sheer impact of this news. EA, king of sloppy multiplatform games has created a Revo- only team only to churn out specific tailored Revo-versions of their franchises while MS and Sony get the same cookie-cutter from 5 years ago but only graphical better. THIS IS HUGE!!!

This is a glimpse of a huge mentality change going on behind the curtains, third parties willingly spending money to make tailored Revo-games from their multi-platform franchises and making revo-exclusive games (that in no way can be ported over to the PS3 and Xbox360) on top of that (best example, Konami, who would have believed that Konami had a exclusive Revo-title in development, nobody!).

Nintendo has somehow regained the faith from third parties , made them believe that their Revolution is going to kick ass, is going to be profitable, is going to give Sony and MS a very good run for their money. You would almost forget that the GC had poor third party support compared to the Xbox... what made them change their minds? What did Nintendo tell them, show them, promise them, commit to them that is causing all this wonderful optimistic news of practically everyone wanting or making at least one exclusive Revolution game (or exclusive Revolution features for their franchises).

Is Nintendo giving out money? Is Nintendo's technical aid with Ubisoft's Red Steel the general way of how Nintendo is working now with third parties? Or... are third parties aware of the financial problems of Sony and MS... remember, Sony is a company that's flirting with bankrupcy, the PS3 is not a cheap thing to make and Xbox has to be profitable by 2007 or stockholders will demand the plug to be pulled... are third parties jumping on the Revolution because there is a viable chance the Xbox360 and PS3 will at a point bail out because the mother company is no more or decides under pressure to close the money flow making Nintendo the sole or second console in the industry?

Too much questions... E3 will not answer them all i'm afraid (i'm looking at this all as a historian in training... so some treads of thinking from my part could look strange indeed) but it's clear, Nintendo has been doing a lot of work behind the scenes to get this kind of support, This E3 is going to be an Atomic Bomb to second power!!

optimus,u have my vote for the most interesting post of the year.you've thrown up some questions,that will answered in time.

i have a feeling spong will need to create a revolution/DS/Nintendo only page over E3,thers gona be sooooo much news,new games,information coming out of it.I CANT WAIT.

"created a Revo- only team only to churn out specific tailored Revo-versions of their franchises while MS and Sony get the same cookie-cutter from 5 years ago but only graphical better. THIS IS HUGE!!!"

It'll be the same game with a different control method, that's all.

Thats retarded!!!

Okay so the game is going to have the same graphics but control is one of the major things that makes a game. This is the difference between playing DDR with a game pad or playing with a dance pad...its not even close to the same experience.

This is indeed very good news, and i look forward to how EA's Rev team develops other franchised titles just for the Rev.

Why is that 'retarded' ? Optimus (at least the way I read his post) took this news story to mean that a separate team had been set up to do a specific version of Madden for the Rev that would be significantly different to the other SKUs. They aren't, they're simply making use of the Rev's controller...which is what every other game dev supporting the Rev is going to do.

I agree this is bigish, but the ramifications of this won't be felt until holiday 2007 at the earliest. As to whether we'll be seeing anything widely different from these Wii (as we will now have to refer to it ) ports, I don't think so. The biggest worry would be that EA tries to rush the ports to fit in with 360 and ps3 delays and comprimises the control scheme so it ends up more gimicky then a new way to play the game. Ultimately we'll have to wait for the games to compare.

Perhaps the more important stuff from the development side of the Wii, is the relatively cheap nature of the dev kits - which would allow more game industry students opportunities to develop at collage, creating the crazy stuff that only 3 years of drinking and taking drugs can create. I think the breakaway hits on the Wii will be the smaller, simpler titles - with smaller budgets and smaller teams. Something that may not come from the established developers in the industry or indeed publishers.




We've established that the wii will be profitable for nintendo, given Ninty's track record of sound financial planning, does this necessarily mean it will be profitable for developers? Whilst there will be those willing to devote significant finances to develop wii only controls, it also diverts money away from the 360 and ps3 ports where development time spent can be spent developing other, possibly more lucrative, aspects of the game (e.g. fancy graphics). Also your casual console gamer will be have to be coerced into learning a new control system. Whilst there's a large amount of support here on the spong forums and elsewhere for what ninty are trying to achieve, johnny redneck isn't going to want to do anything more challenging then picking up a ps3, plugging in madden and playing the game he's always played (rinse and repeat for pro evo, fifa etc). This is far and away the biggest problem for nintendo.

I also disagree with your statement that the 360 needs to be profitable by 2007 or the plug will be pulled. That's fairly ridiculous IMO, MS are in for the long haul, despite losing billions on the xbox for 4 years, they'll pack up after less then 3 years after their new console launch? Certainly questions would be asked, but MS are a smart financial company - they would not be in the game if they didn't think there was something in for them in the long run, which 2007 isn't. They've learnt from the xbox (e.g. own the rights to everything in your console) and I don't doubt they'll turn a profit at some point.

Sony being nearly bankrupt, yeah I guess that's an issue - apparently its dicey whether their huge bet on bluray and the ps3 will be recupable, but this company has had a huge amount of 3rd party support and a sizeable fanbase who have only ever owned playstations. A lot of what could be inferred about their profitability depends on what they haven't shown us so far, an unannounced killer app, like a new GTA, could really increase sales. They'll probably lose some market share, but hey, what's that when you've got 60-80% depending on the region?



I'm excited about the Wii too, but I don't expect it to change everything quite so drastically.

It's not retarted what you said, but it is narrow-minded since the Wiicontroller is (potentially) a huge jump forward in terms of intuďtion and immersion that both X360 and PS3 cannot achieve in no way(yet). Making a game fit the Revolution controller as EA seems to be doing with Madden will (potentially, keyword in everything regarding the Wii) automatically mean (if they don't screw it up) that the Wii's version has a (far) more intuitive and immersive control set-up, what the end result (aka you're subjective expercience) will be, we don't really know yet, but more intuition and more immersion should lead to better gamexpercience in general (except if you're some 70-year old guy that thinks that the old days were made out of gold or something)

Now the reasoning behind my first post in this topic must be seen with a very wide vision, not only concentrated on EA (i don't care about EA-games myself). Thing is, if EA is willing to tailor their games for the Wiicontroller with even a seperate Wiidedicated team, combined with all this news of exclusive Wiigames (this Wii ting is starting to stick...and adding very comical notes to everyone's typing) from more and more third parties can only mean one thing: they trust Nintendo and their Wii, coming from the poor support situation of the GC that's a huge jump so i'm asking myself... what the crap did Nintendo do to get all those third parties to trust them and their Wiiproject.

But i have to agree with the nuances of Thane, EA has the potential of screwing s**t up big time.
The Xbox360 being unplugged by 2007... i'm deadserious about it... MS maybe in it for the long haul, doesn't mean that the stockholders are seeing it the same way...it's a big black hole sucking up billions for them, the Xbox project almost got unplugged in 2003 by them. giving MS some slack, maybe they don't need to be profitable by 2007, but if itsn't by 2008, it's going to get unplugged big time.

Oh yes, one more thing...Wiigames *sniggers*

I understand that everything in your post is "potentially", Optimus, but I still think that you're being a little optimistic.

Will Nintendo be able to produce anything other than gimmiks? No software shown yet. Potentially innovative....



They started a new console generation. The N64 totally died years before they released the Cube, and low and behold when the Cube came out most third parties released at least one game on the system, or at least thought about developing for it (i.e. made positive comments before launch).

The Cube died again towards the end (although not bad badly as the N64) and here we have a few third parties showing interest in the Rev.

Note that IMO, although I don't have stats, the number of third parties interested in the Rev and have indicated releases seems substantially less than the number that indicated support for the Cube around this much time before its release. E3 will decide though.



LOL. I haven't seen any good games from EA since The Sims.



2008 still isn't log term. Think 10 to 20 years. If the Xbox is dragging Microsoft down after 10 years then the shareholders might start getting a bit concerned.

However if the Xbox isn't profitable for another 6 years but establishes itself in a considerable number of homes through which Microsoft can pump media content and diversify from the PC market and ease market share away from Sony, Apple and force large companies to support it (Sky?), the Xbox would have been a very good investment.

that's a bit cheeky! (and I believe its retarded, but anyway picking up on spelling is a bit nitty considering I ballsed up my last post, I meant to say that pressure to release the Wii version at the same time as the ps3 and 360 version could comprimise lofty exclusive wii controller hopes for cross-platform games). Like you say, potentially a huge jump forward for gameplay- but since its so new, a lot of the new control systems could be counter intuitive for the current crop of gamers.




A lot of developers are interested in the controller from a challenge standpoint - in the same way we're excited about it, they are too - because they don't know what it can do yet and its so new. Interest in something won't necessarily lead to a game. Funky ideas from dev's, may well turn out to be just that. For example Lionhead has fantastic ideas for games, but they've been extremely poor at implementing them successfully. Who's to say that this great interest in developing won't suddenly dry up as dev's find the challenge of creating fun gameplay with a new device too much? I think a lot of what is released will copy Nintendo's 1st person games' control systems, given the added leadtime they've had in developing games, so much of the onus could be back on nintendo to innovate and we see little elsewhere.





Gotta agree with Adam M here, the 360 is innovating greatly with online services and as a multimedia hub (although a bigger harddrive is ultimately required - MS should really have seen that coming). Given rumours of an x-boy handheld system and the growing userbase of the 360, do you believe that MS will go away quietly into the night (Japan not withstanding)? They're in a potentially fantastic position xmas 2007 in the west, with 2nd gen games coming out (which will be comparable graphically to 1st gen ps3 games and likely of a higher standard technology wise (e.g. dev's have had longer to learn the development tools)) and likely ps3 shortages.

I'm not trying to be down on the wii or narrow minded, I'm really interested in it, I'm just attempting to present an alternative viewpoint then the wii will piss over everything (sorry kid_77, I stole your joke). I am of course happy to be proved wrong.



I think we've got a week before that gets old, but until then:
*snigger*




Spore is looking rather tasty indeed - a coincidence? Methinks not.

While Nintendo would argue that it isn't the sheer amount of games that makes a system successful, it's the quality of games, Gamecube failed for numerous reasons, which I'm sure you're all aware of. Realistically it was handicapped in old methods of thinking.

Broadband wasn't considered
The colour and design of the system
No built in DVD player
Control scheme
Proprietary Disks
Lack of prudence on Nintendo's Part (handling of Left Field, Rare, Silicon Knights, "quality" vs. quantity mantra, arroggantly stating it knows what gamers want etc.)

These all led to the downfall of the Gamecube and possible success.

Barring graphics (which I cannot judge at this time) Wii will have quite a few obstacles, but in my opinion they are a far cry from Gamecube at this point.
The biggest however isn't the controller, but the name in my opinion. It's too ambiguous and doesn't hit home with older gamers. To me they've created two niche markets

A) For kids
B) Hardcore Gamers

Although this sounds ridiculous, casual gamers who could be anywhere between (including but no limited to) 10-20yrs old and they will have issues with the name now associated with it. This is because a lot of it is a popularity contest during those ages rather than really giving a crap about "new gameplay."

Im sure there are exceptions to the rule but think about it. When you were in school were you considered a real gamer if you owned an N64 but not a Playstation? Likewise if you owned a Gamecube and not a Playstation? I can tell from experience that when I was in high school if you owned a PS2 you were in the casual gamer crowd because of everything that Sony did right (design, name branding, very good library of quite a lot of games) and what Nintendo did wrong.

When you consider how much Nintendo wants to shed its kiddy image, it's really this segment that feeds into the idea that it indeed IS kiddy, and right there you have a hurricane forming where if the system isn't considered cool regardless of what the system represents, the system will inevitably have the tag of loser console.
The early teens is generally the beginning of the preoccupation with brand names (and not necessarily quality) for many young trend setters and in my humble estimation Wii although Nintendo might think their name is ingenius (wi-fi, WE = multiplayer, togetherness etc) I doubt most teens will get the significance behind the name and toss it out the window like yesterday's club monaco, because club monaco is so like yesterday!

I like this debate, people here do add some nice nuances which could also (to bad... potentially... crappy E3 come faster!!) be right, so i'm not going to discuss how the Wiimote will change gaming for sure because i can't and you can't and BAM, so useless to do that. Still rich debate... love spong for that.

MS bailing the Xbox project will occur by form of stockholder pressure... which in most cases is a external factor the company has no control over, if the stockholders aren't happy about one project, it will get axed. MS does rely heavily on external stockholders and investors and in these days of "the tirrany of stockhlders" they want to see something making profit in 5 years if sooner. MS, or it's management probably does have long-term plans of 10-20 year span, but in the end, if the stockholders want it axxed, it gets axxed... and in Xbox case, not profitable by 2007-2008, it's going to get axxed by stockholder pressure, which is a external force the company does not control. Xbox for stockholders is a 10 billion dollar black hole which could have been profit to be distributed among themselves.

PS: the tirranny of stockholders is a term i made up to embody the current trend of stockholders putting huge amounts of pressure on execs to make more and more profit (Coca Cola execs do not get paid if the profits of the company don't go up 25%, recently unveiled). Do not mangle up the board of execs (the planmakers) and the stockholders (the ones that in the end have the saying), they both have different views and goals with the same company.

But, but... By your argument, people would never invest in non-profitable companies. They do though. They invest in anticipation of future profit - companies can run for years and years and never make a profit but continue to keep on going.

NTL is still making losses (http://www.thehollywoodreporter.com/thr/business/brief_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1002076559), certain divisions in Sony keep making losses but they're still support - hey, even Nintendo made tehir famous loss one year (quarter?). By your thinking, shareholders would simply pull the plug on companies as soon as they show any signs of a loss, or wouldn't invest in them in the first place.

At the moment the Xbox project is making a loss. But it's only been going a few years, and it's not really denting Microsoft's profit too much. Microsoft will have a strategy for Xbox, and the shareholders will be represented via the board to ensure that their interests are being met. If the board didn't think that there was going to be a good return to the shareholders, then they wouldn't have started or continued the project.

It's not hard to see why you might be willing to sacrifice a bit of profit to see Xbox through for 10 to 20 years. Microsoft cannot grow in PCs anymore, but it has hardware and software skill that it can apply to related markets. It's been developing games for years. It also wants a slice of the digital media market, as it can see Apple making huge profits.

Microsoft, along with other media companies, will be beginning to think about the convergence of devices into one box, and the number of functions this box could do, and how it could act as a stream for digital content. Rather than act as a supplier of software, with Xbox Microsoft is able to take profits from the device and all media that goes into it, in the same way as Apple is doing with iPod.

If this doesn't work, and that convergence doesn't happen (it hasn't yet!), then what has Microsoft lost? It may or may not have a profitable games machine and/or niche-market media centre market. It will have lost or made millions.

But flip the coin... If Microsoft doesn't invest in this idea, it could see a shrinking of its core PC market as functions transfer to other devices. It will be in a weaker position to exploit media markets, and will probably have to come to some less-than-agreeable agreement with Sony or Apple. Not what Microsoft wants - it wants profits from everything. If worst came to worst, and content really was king with no Microsoft-standards in place, it could be at the mercy of other companies (if most people have a PS3 with SonyAudio, what happens when they want to play their SonyAduio files on a Windows machine? Microsoft has to pay Sony...).

Who's going to win: Microsoft Xbox HD-DVD or Sony PS3 Blu-ray? I know who my money's on, so prehaps they're not quite there yet... ;)

"But, but... By your argument, people would never invest in non-profitable companies. They do though. They invest in anticipation of future profit - companies can run for years and years and never make a profit but continue to keep on going.

NTL is still making losses (http://www.thehollywoodreporter.com/thr/business/brief_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1002076559), certain divisions in Sony keep making losses but they're still support - hey, even Nintendo made tehir famous loss one year (quarter?). By your thinking, shareholders would simply pull the plug on companies as soon as they show any signs of a loss, or wouldn't invest in them in the first place."

I never said that... where did i say that? In no way did i ever typed this kind of logic down, better question is, what made you ever read that kind of logic in what i posted since it doesn't say it anywhere (i said 5-years which is still a long time). Companies running for years and years... bank loans or not paying their debts (because the one who they own the debt to is butt a small company, this happens a lot), Sony still supporting it loss-making divisions... probably because their income still cover up their fixed costs and therefore do contribute to a possible profit, it's a econ thing called profitcontribution (i'm translating it directly from the dutch term, i have no idea it's the correct english term), a loss-making division or product isn't always good to scrap if the revenue that it creates still covers up it's fixed costs and then some. Also there's a difference between companies doing a restructering plan to get them out of annual losses and the Xbox division.

Besides, you also completly ignore the context of what kind of company MS is in shareholders eyes. Like i said, shareholders of Coca Cola will not accept the board of execs to be paid any fee if the profit of the company doesn't go up 25% this year... MS is the same type of company when it comes to shareholder perspective, it needs to make profit and every year more... Xbox-project is a billion dollar dumpwaste in their eyes that can be a hassle of increasing annual profit, again, Xbox was threatened to be unplugged in 2003 by shareholder pressure, this did happen! It probably will happen again by 2007 or 2008 if Xbox isn't profitable by then, no matter what kind of plan the board has in store.

MS Windows XP Media manager and the new Origami are in that regard (of convergence) not positive because they share the same goal as the Xbox-project (and in a way actually compete with each other in that regard) and one of those three could be perceived to be a blocking element towards the other one from making a profit by shareholders.

I'm sure that all MS projects are routinely evaluated. The xbox division is slightly more special, in that its getting into homes, reaching a market which other MS products don't and has a lot higher brand awareness then either the XP media manager or the Origami (which although a media convergence device isn't really going after the same market as the 360 and lets face it, is a kinda joke). I cannot see the 360 being pulled within the next few years, barring a complete f**k up on MS' behalf. They have a lot of enthusiastic people working for them (check out majornelson, if its back up, each new post there gets a couple of thousand hits within a couple of hours) and are generating strong links to the community (lots of bloggers are consistently invited to check out their new stuff). They are working very hard to make the 360 a success for them and I believe, in the west, it will be.
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I agree that its pretty futile to debate the unknown, but I would assume that the controller is the main reason that developers are interested in the Wii, rather then the failings of either MS or Sony. Which is the main issue I had with your first statement.