I remember the days when EA refused to get on board with either the Sega Saturn or Dreamcast...and I remember being more than a little upset about it...

Now, before the Nintendo DS is launched, EA is jumping onboard like they' re good friends till the end...

What' s up with that?

Read the article...

EA reveals new details on DS lineup

Concrete details on the new features added to Madden, Tiger Woods, and The Urbz on the Nintendo DS inside.
Electronic Arts today issued a press release containing new information on its lineup of launch titles for the Nintendo DS, which will be released on November 21. GameSpot brought back hands-on impressions of all three games--Tiger Woods PGA Tour Golf, Madden NFL 2005, and The Urbz: Sims in the City--from Nintendo' s Gamer' s Summit this past weekend.

Adding to the information released at the summit, EA today provided some more details on each title. " Each of our games has been custom-designed for the Nintendo DS, guaranteeing a one-of-a-kind entertainment experience," said Frank Gibeau, EA' s senior VP of North American marketing.

Madden NFL 2005 is " the deepest and most authentic handheld sports game ever," says today' s release. Players will use the Nintendo DS' touch-screen input to select plays and call audibles at the line of scrimmage, then drag the stylus to kick off the ball. The lower touch screen will also show off the " field radar," which shows players the position of every player on the field. The " heart of the action" will be shown on the top screen.

The game will also feature wireless head-to-head play, authentic NFL uniforms for all 32 NFL teams, and portraits of each player. A full season mode will complement such unique gameplay options as the situation mode and the two-minute drill.

Tiger Woods PGA Tour will feature such golfing legends as Vijay Singh and Jack Nicklaus, in addition to Tiger himself. Five licensed courses and one fantasy course, all drawn from the console versions of the title, are available for play. The difference is in the swing meter--players will drag the stylus along a curve shown on the bottom screen to swing the club. PGA Tour will also feature wireless multiplayer, this time for up to four players at once.

The Urbz: Sims in the City, a spin-off of the extraordinarily popular PC game The Sims, will also launch alongside the Nintendo DS. While the console and Game Boy Advance versions of the title will launch earlier in the month, the DS version will contain numerous exclusive features, including 24 objects, a touch-screen menu system, five minigames, and exclusive characters--seven human, five animal.

All three titles are rated " E" for Everyone. In the months following the DS launch, EA will ship versions of GoldenEye: Rogue Agent and Need for Speed Underground for the handheld.

By Chris Kohler -- GameSpot

I am sure EA supported the Saturn and they were one of my favourite developers back then because they stuck with SEGA and then i started disliking them when they didnt support the Dreamcast at all. I personally think it is SEGA who put EA at the top because of the Megadrive and then i see it as EA turning their back on SEGA.
Hopefully people will keep buying none EA products on the handhelds so that EA doesnt gain even more power.

who knows mabey its a coding thing, or something to do with antisega. mabey they were legaly stuck on another system. email them and ask them.

EA did support the Saturn, but they never supported the Dreamcast.. One of the big reasons supposedly was Bernie Stolar.

I guess another reason was probably that they still felt burned by the Saturn. The Saturn was really hard to program and none of the games they released on it sold well.

The DS, like the GameBoy Advance is a low risk venture and is a platform that' s very likely to take off.

I stand corrected about Saturn support...(notice I changed the original thread subject line).

But with the PSP knocking at Nintendo' s door, combined with the fact that Sony has had similar success with their past endeavors, you would think that EA would be more likely to side with Sony...but maybe it' s just me.

Speaking of EA, I think they' ll be one of the companies that will inadvertantly expose the DS' weakness against the PSP.

I just saw pictures of their DS Madden game and it is ugly as hell. What will happen when casual gamers and other consumers see the ugly as sin DS Madden game running side by side with an almost PS2 quality Madden game?

I was disappointed in the DS Ridge Racer pictures as well, OY VE was that an even uglier looking game. I' m still getting it at launch though, I' m just hoping that the pictures shown so far of the games aren' t even close to doing them justice.

It' s all to do with economics. Developing for the Dreamcast was seen as being risky by EA after the failure of the Saturn. By contrast the GBA has been a huge success and EA can see the DS as being at least as successful.

Don' t know if you ever heard of this but: the psp was created by sony with the help of two hands full of ex sega guys.
The same guys responsible for creating the sega game gear (wich was way way way ahead of it' s time).
This is why the psp' s quality is so much higher than the ds' s.
Nintendo has never ever been good at graphics

Ahh, but Nintendo have always been good at hand-helds. While the PSP may have better graphics all it really is, is a portable PS2 with a battery life of 2 hours (so I' ve heard.) The DS is a *new* console different to today’s current generation consoles with a battery life of 6-7 hours.

here' s the thing
the graphics on the DS are a little better than 64
PSP claims to have great graphics
and yet their current lineup only showcases PSX graphics
Hmmmm...
Oh, and as for why did EA join in with the DS game parade...
It' s Nintendo!
Everyone knows that if Nintendo is doing it, it will sell. Maybe not so much, but Nintendo will sell. If Playstation tried this, they wouldn' t be able to pull it off without making it cost around $500. Seriously. They' d make it cost too much, and it wouldn' t catch on. Nintendo made it affordable, and innovative.
If EA didn' t jump on the bandwagon they' d have been screwing themselves
Which is only so much fun until you realize that you' re screwing yourself!
After a while it loses it' s fun.