IGN

January 3, 2005 - According to a report from Yahoo! UK Finance, Ubisoft Entertainment could soon be receiving support from the French government in its bid to combat a takeover from US videogame monolith, Electronic Arts.

Viva la France!!

It appears that France knows what they are doing...and me likes!

This would be the second big GOOD decision France has made lately...this one, and the decision not to go to Iraq - I just wish our leaders would have listened...

Perhaps the French government should spend their money to better help people that actually have problems, and not worry about some " evil" company trying to take over UbiSoft.

I loved this, at last somebody has said that Ea cant have what they want. like taking candy from a baby, well no, acctully it has nothing to do with that. Ah madness!

No, I can' t say I' m a big fan of EA Snaffling up company after company. Here' s hoping Ubisoft can manage so stay clear of EA. Competition in the games industry is a good thing as it breeds creativity. EA seems to be wanting rid of any serious competition, seemingly unsatisfied with their current status.

And it' s not like they actually keep the competition they buy, they pretty much destroy them, lower dev payments, make them work longer hours, fire half of teh staff and then complain about the games not coming out on time, and finally fire them all and shut them down.

The best thing to come from EA buying a company has to be Burnout 3... though the branding and the music provided by ' EA Trax' or whatever ahs to be the worst part about the game. God damn you DJ Stryker!

and yet EA' s motto is " channlge everything" but do they play by their own rules? its more like buy everything.

I hope the French Government whips EA' s " monkey a$$" !

The French government need to stop interfering with their industries. They should let market forces sort things out.

I' m a hardcore capitalist, but I really like how france is threatening to help out ubisoft if ea tries to buy them out. EA is just creating monopolies and horrible games. They already bought out the NFL liscence for 5 years, Sega ESPN NFL 2k5 basicaly took every single sports game of the year award, but you can say goodbye to that for the next 5 years. EA puts out the lowest percentage of good games for any company in my opinion, they have very few games I can even stand playing. Ubisoft makes tons of great games, and are becoming one of my favorite game companies.
It is actually creating a more competetive environment if we have more game companies, instead of just letting EA become bigger and bigger.

Luckily, EA has been unable to convince the others (NBA, MLB, NHL) to become exclusive...Could it be that ESPN has beaten them decisively in each of these areas for the last 3-5 years now?!

I will say this...if the NFL believes that EA isn' t representing their best interests, the exclusivity contract will be null-and-void. EA will pull a wardrobe-malfunction stunt, and the NFL will put so much distance between them and EA that people will begin to say " EA? EA who? Is that a new punk rock band?"

The ESPN line has been better than EA' s for a few years now...

Bigger sales doesn' t mean better quality...some people just can' t face change so easily, so they remain loyal to a franchise despite its obvious decline.

And, without Madden' s name on the title (a BIG mistake, EA!!!), people will be less likely to remain so loyal to a newly created franchise.

Wow, i didn' t know they removed madden from the title, what is the story behind that?

I didn' t know about the name change either...

Anyways, I have to say though that ESPN was only truly better than Madden this year. The previous years it was still good, but not Madden good. I' m going to miss ESPN because they had the football control scheme down for Xbox. That was my biggest problem with Madden...the control scheme was so horrible.

According to the story (I will try to locate and offer a link), EA ' s take is that John Madden is now perceived as the franchise weak point.

Personally, I just think that EA wants to break free from paying all those royalties to Madden for his likeness, voice, and name.


...


...sorry, folks...

...I tried to locate that article, but it appears to no longer be available. However, I did locate a story where pre-orders ARE being taken for Madden 2006. So, I guess the story I recall reading was possibly either 1) all in my head (not likely), or 2) assuming that Madden would be taken out of the franchise...I don' t know, and frankly I don' t care about EA games - I' m an ESPN fan.

...not to mention that I have slept since I read that mysteriously disappearing article...(play the Twilight Zone theme here)...

Well I certainly dislike Madden' s voice on EA' s games. I think it would be a lot better if they actually updated the dialogue every year. ESPN' s is so realistic...I mean, sure, you are going to start hearing the same thing over and over again eventually. But it just sounds better in ESPN for some reason...

I have a link to the rumor about madden. Unfortunatley it' s on a somewhat ummmmm Inapropriate webpage for viewing for people of all ages.

2. After 15 consecutive years of putting out games, the John Madden video game franchise is taking a year off. There will be no Madden NFL 2006. With EA Sports acquiring the exclusive NFL game license (and in effect knocking out virtually any competition) it will take an extra year off for research and development and completely revamp the game for a big re-release for 2007.

That was quoted on a webpage discussing 7 big rumors for 2005.

Thank you VERY much, mxpx182!!!

For a minute there, I thought I was losing my mind.

No problem Daroosh. I' m lucky if I can keep my mind from one day to the next.