That's about as huge of industry news as I've heard in... well, forever. Could you imagine the implications of ALL OF EA SPORTS being MS exclusives? Not to mention the Mass Effects, Dead Space, and other EA IPs of the world. http://www.thestreet.com/story/10602302/1/tech-rumor-microsoft-eyeing-ea.html?cm_ven=GOOGLEN
microsoft would be dumb to try to make the video games exclusive to their systems. processors/os's are one thing , this is completely different.
I seriously doubt Microsoft would make EA games exclusive if they aquire EA. They would basically be throwing money in the trash.
My question is if MS did this how long it would take Nintendo and Sony to bring up some sort of lawsuit to stop it? Like a monopoly lawsuit...of course I am not a lawyer and not sure what can be done here.
they already tried it with processors, and making those processors only able to run windows. the courts told them to knock it off or get broken up.
Well they dont have to make them exclusive... They just have to ask for a ridiculous amount of cash to develop for the the other consoles.
Microsoft isn't stupid. They licensed ActiveSync to so that GoogleSync, iPhone, Palm, etc. could all work with Exchange. Pretty nice windfall there and it ensures their mail platform remains entrenched regardless of what happens on the front end (user land). I highly doubt they would shut the other platforms out from EA games. It's just not logical and they won't do it. EA is a fantastic brand. The last thing MS wants to do is mess that up. We're talking about a lot of money here. Just like the phone and desktop/OS market mentioned above, game consoles are and will remain highly competitive for a long time. This deal would ensure Microsoft's viability on the 'back end' (like Exchange), regardless of what happens with consoles ('user land'). One thing they COULD do, however, is release EA games to Xbox and PC first. Or they could bundle EA products as part of the purchase of an Xbox (with lower overhead than competitors). It's also possible that they simply make it a wholly owned subsidiary and not mess with it much. With the advantage owning EA would bring to their markets, I think we probably would see some form of what I mentioned above. But MS will not rock that boat. No way.
They could degrade the product slightly. Like, say you want madden 2011 in full 1080p, you have to buy the Xbox version.
