Remember when EA snagged exclusive rights to the NFL license? …does it surprise anyone to learn they might want to snap up the MLB license, too?
In a candid interview with Kotaku , EA Sports boss Peter Moore says the company is considering a return to interactive baseball, and may want that Major League Baseball license, too. It's currently held by Sony and 2K for the likes of The Show and MLB 2K and Moore says he wants EA to get back into the sport "in a way that makes sense for the shareholders of Electronic Arts." Said Moore:
"We would love to get back involved in baseball. The ability for us to be able to get back, and in a meaningful way, and in a way that makes sense for the shareholders of Electronic Arts is going to be important. But we're all baseball fans. I always say this, though, and we're always looking at what's going on there. Our friends at Take-Two and at Sony have obviously got very robust licenses. No way are we going to negatively impact that while they have a binding license. But, you know, we'll see."
If you're wondering, the current MLB licenses will expire in 2012, when EA might want to make its move and re-enter the world of baseball…possibly with exclusive rights, although they don't want to "negatively impact" Sony or Take-Two in the meantime. We say EA can just leave well enough alone; get the MLB rights, but forget this exclusive nonsense; Sony makes a damn good baseball simulator in The Show and this year's MLB 2K iteration was good, too. The question is, what do baseball fans really want? Do they trust EA enough after all their success with Madden ?
HELL NO! The Show is the best baseball experience out there, and even there PSP iterations are in depth and very entertaining. This spells disaster for the sport.
Back off! You had your chance EA
Stick to your Football BS
MLB The Show > Madden
I second that stick to football.
Baseball = boredom.
I hear ya!!
It's like Homer banning himself from Duff for 6 months.
"I never realised how boring this game really is!!"
haha
Hell, no, EA won't be content with just getting into the game unless they can sport themselves another franchised monopoly on this game too.
It's bad for baseball, it's bad for games, &it's especially bad for gamers.
Geeze…looks like EA plans to brush Take-Two and Sony off the plate with a little chin music.
Could EA really afford to have both the NFL and MLB exclusive license at the same time? It would be a risk ponying up that kind of dough, especially seeing as how they haven't been in the baseball business for quite some time.
Hezzron,
Especially seeing how EA had already stated a few months back that they were in the red with losses of $645 million.
Right. At least Madden is a solid franchise. Their first attempt at baseball in years could flop. It's a risk.
lack of competition means little to no growth between titles.
Tell that to Sony San Diego. They've improved The Show every year despite having no real competition.
Baseball's not my thing really, but I trust sony over EA any day for any game really.
After seeing all those reviews for MLB The Show (which isn't available here in Australia cos Baseball isn't overly popular), I say EA should leave it.
Sony is quality. EA is multiplat functioning then quality.
Not the biggest news to me, I don't really care what happens. But it would be a shame to lose MLB The Show to the 3FixMe crowd.
EA are starting to turn back into there usual selves, they better be careful otherwise there going to turn into the new activision!
that BS online pass thing, and trying to ban used sales of their games is not going to win them any fans either!
i understand there a company and they need to keep there shareholders happy.
BUT what happened to customer support?
the way EA are treating their fans, well they expect us to keep buying their games after they give us the finger?
thank you sir may i have another?
sorry, but theres many other places i can take my cash if thats how they treat their fans.
what ever happened to the good old saying the customer is always right?
I wouldn't worry. It just won't happen.
The MLB gets way too much business out of The Show in marketing. Everything from MLB.tv being on sony, countless aspects of broadcasted aspects to the game like the pitching line being brought to you by MLB the Show, only on playstation, MLB players being actively involved in the marketing of the game, MLBPA taking part in it's production (which isn't the case with EA's MLB games), and more….
It just won't work. There's already too much of an established relationship between Sony with The Show and the MLB. I watch a lot of baseball. I never see adds on MLB.tv, Sportsnet, or TSN with any advertisment of EA's MLB games. All 3 of the sports stations have ads for The Show, and statistical updates for all three are often "Brought to you by MLB '10 The Show: Only on Playstation".
I always liked EA's Triple Play/MVP baseball games as they were at the time the best video baseball games available ! I still play my old MVP Baseball 2005 from time to time !
The Show and Major League Baseball just doesn't do it or me so I've never been a fan of either franchise !
My top 5 video baseball games!
MVP Baseball 2005
Out Of The Park Baseball
High Heat Baseball 2002
Hard Ball
Triple Play baseball 2000
Last edited by phade2blaq on 6/28/2010 7:15:09 AM
Actually, the way I think it is now is that 2K Sports has the exclusive rights to MLB, which is why EA doesn’t do baseball any more. There, however, is a loophole that allows
console manufacturers to make MLB games for their consoles – e.g., The Show for the PS3, some God awful MLB game M$ft used to publish, and the Ken Griffey Baseball game Nintendo used to publish back on the N64. For some reason, Nintendo stopped the Griffey series but not because of any exclusivity deal.
“In 2005, in response to EA Sports' exclusive license with the National Football League and ESPN prohibiting any NFL 2K games for the foreseeable future, Take-Two Interactive signed an exclusive third-party licensing contract with Major League Baseball (MLB), MLBPA and MLBAM to produce MLB games. The agreement, which runs from Spring 2006 to 2012, allows for the console manufacturers Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo to produce MLB titles for their respective platforms, but bars third party developers such as EA Sports from continuing or developing their own MLB games.â€
If I recall correctly, EA’s NFL deal has a similar loophole that allows console manufacturers to do NFL games for their consoles. I believe Sony even published a GameDay or two under that loophole before it cancelled the series.
“On December 13, 2004, EA Sports announced it had secured exclusive rights to the NFL and its players' union for the subsequent five years, precluding any other third party from selling a football game using NFL players, teams, stadiums or other licenses. This was recently extended until 2012.â€
Appreciate the accurate research you've done there! Bravo!
I do remember when the Ken Griffey Jr. series ended, though. I don't remember reading why, but I can speculate. Around the time it ended, was also around the time he went 2 years losing a lot of time due to injury. He was simply off the radar, and after his injury, it took time to get his swing back, and he more or less lost most of his speed. He went from being an all-star to a decent designated hitter. I think it's hard to sell a game based on one players name if that player has been more or less non-existent over two years.
Anyways, like I said, I don't have any proof of that, but the timeline does seem to match up.
He left to the Cincinnati Reds in 2000(worse move of his career)
The Seattle Mariners are actually owned/partly owned by Nintendo. So it was a win-win situation for Nintendo back then.
Lord knows we don't need another EA license for a sport. SONY out of everyone should have the license, they are really good at making good MLB games! EA not so much.
I would love to see the Return of "MVP Baseball" but not at the expense of "MLB the Show". Hopefully if EA gets back in the game things go like this MLB the Show and MVP Baseball compete for the title who's the best baseball game and MLB 2k can enter the same retirement home as NHL 2k.