EA's second half lineup for 2006
by Alan Rose 
{ Jul 12th 2006 at 2:00PM }
Electronic Arts has confirmed their release list for the remainder of the year, and according to studio president Paul Lee, "this is an extraordinary time to be a gamer."EA Sports titles include 07 editions of NCAA Football, Madden NFL, NASCAR, NHL, Tiger Woods PGA Tour, and NBA Live, while the EA Sports Big label will deliver the third iteration of NFL Street. FIFA 07 has not been confirmed, but even though EA has already released two other FIFA games this year, plan on seeing the franchise's flagship title updated in Q4.
Next gen and portable versions of The Godfather are also due to arrive in September, followed by Need for Speed Carbon, Superman Returns, and shooters Battlefield 2142 and Crysis. How many of these games are on your list?
See also:
[via Pro-G]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Baboon @ Jul 12th 2006 2:15PM
Am I the only one who would rather go outside and play the damned sport rather than pretend to with a video game? Sports games are games... of games. Just doesn't make much sense to me.
I guess I am just not EA's target demographic.
potato @ Jul 12th 2006 2:17PM
Extraordinary time to be a gamer eh? The only game on my list there is Crysis, with the new Battlefield as a strong maybe. Everything is just REHASH and YET MORE ROSTER UPDATES.
Vexorg @ Jul 12th 2006 2:20PM
Zero. I haven't purchased an EA game since they took the exclusive NFL license.
choey @ Jul 12th 2006 2:23PM
Or just hang on to your 2006, 2005, 2004, 2003, or 2002 versions for precisely the game.
HallwayGiant @ Jul 12th 2006 2:28PM
Sports games have never been interesting to me (how do they sell so well again?) and EAs internal projects never seem never measure up well. That said Crysis and BF 2142 don't look bad at all.
Stu L Tissimus @ Jul 12th 2006 2:29PM
I would repeat what Potato said, but I couldn't have said it better myself.
KingOfGods @ Jul 12th 2006 2:34PM
I want to try superman....they look to be taking their time and at 40% complete looked good at e3. It looks like it may be fun.
neale @ Jul 12th 2006 2:35PM
im from the uk, and from what i see of nascar it is like 30 cars going round and round and round. cant wait...
PES6 ftw
Brian @ Jul 12th 2006 2:37PM
Madden and NCAA Football both look fantastic for the 360. I'll definitely be buying NCAA next week when it's released.
Todd H. @ Jul 12th 2006 2:48PM
Can't wait for NCAA Football and the more complete version of Tiger Woods.
Todd
http://www.proxbox360.com
MosquitoControl @ Jul 12th 2006 2:50PM
Crysis looks outstanding.
BF2142 will be awful. Every single BF game has been a bug-fest, BF2 being the worst. Those bugs have not been patched, and 2142 will more likely than not have them all, as well as the annoying cone-of-fire.
I don't understand the popularity of these games. They're so poorly coded and so poorly executed. Sound concept, little details work, big ones suck.
NHL 07 I'd be interested in if the 06 wasn't awful on the PC. So maybe I'd get it on the 360, but a console interface on the PC was a nightmare. You needed both the mouse and the keyboard to go through menus, one alone wouldn't do it. And the interface was in standard TV resolution with a border around it pushing it up to your monitors. Lots of dead space, making it hard to see anything. Lastly, the mouse was virtually useless. NHL 95 let you drag and drop lines. Here? You had to click 6 or 7 times, via keyboard, to change a line, and you never had a good view of your lines.
A nightmare.
Subnet6 @ Jul 12th 2006 2:55PM
Hey! Potato stole my post! Or at least he said EXACTLY what I was going to say. Crysis (I loved Farcry) and 2142 if I have time.
Oh, and Neale, I'm from the US and you are correct about Nascar. I have no idea what the draw is over here.
Likewise, I can't figure out why almost no one has any interest in professional soccer here.
Lord Thanatos @ Jul 12th 2006 2:56PM
this list is pure ass.
"this is an extraordinary time to be a gamer."
EA isnt learning anything. this list is frickign hilarious- im not excited at all. the godfather was grgabage- why bother briging it out for next gen ystems...who the hell is gonna pay 60 bucks for that? hhahahahah Crysis and battlefield are the only things worthy of even mentioning.
The absolute best thing about this list is that i can continue to write EA off....
EA SUCKS- THEY HAVE NO GAME!
ill trooper @ Jul 12th 2006 3:02PM
A few things:
As for the 'play the real thing rather than the video game' comments this topic ALWAYS brings up, most of my friends who play the EA sports games ALSO play the real game. Maybe it's 11pm at night and they can't ACTUALLY go out to play some football, much less organize another 3,7,9 people to join them so they play online. They can't get enough, so they extend their interest into times of the day or week when they can't play the real thing by reading about it online, playing in online fantasy leagues, or video game versions of their interest.
I wonder if anyone who ever types 'play the real thing rather than the video game' REALLY 'goes outside and plays the real thing.'
Also: EA sports franchises - Yes, a new version comes out every year. Is it redundant? Perhaps it is, but if you're into it, you tend to overlook that. New options, new features, new music, and the new player or rule updates to reflect what's changed in the real world of whatever sport you're into. I admit, you have to be into it to justify the yearly purchase, but this whole industry is really just a luxury anyway, right? No real need to justify anything to anyone if you think it's FUN. No one laughed at you for getting that Halo2 map pack, so let the virtua-jocks do their thing too.
Anyway, I'm into a lot of games EA puts out, including FIFA, Tiger Woods golf, the Battlefield series, Need For Speed, and now I'm eager to check out Crysis.
So yeah, I think this looks like a pretty good line-up from EA. Except I want to see a Next-Gen SSX!
Cage @ Jul 12th 2006 3:03PM
They sell well because they aren't marketed toward guys (and girls) who go online and post in forums just to say they dont like sports games. Fact is these games are the core sell to casual gamers. People that wouldn't normally buy FFXIII and MGS.
murph @ Jul 12th 2006 3:03PM
the next-gen NHL 07 looks amazing, it is going to be worth a rental to see if they can get the A.I. right. if they do, 2KSports is going to get destroyed, because graphically it looks like EA is way ahead of them.
no next-gen SSX? hopefully in early 2007 then.
Jeff @ Jul 12th 2006 3:16PM
""this is an extraordinary time to be a gamer."
EA Sports titles include 07 editions of NCAA Football, Madden NFL, NASCAR, NHL, Tiger Woods PGA Tour, and NBA Live,"
So in other words, it's 'extraordinary' to see all the same releases we see every year. Sounds pretty plain old 'ordinary' to me.
I love PR spin.
Buckshot @ Jul 12th 2006 3:27PM
WOOT! NCAA 07 for the 360!
Texas FTW!
Jose @ Jul 12th 2006 3:28PM
Fucking weak ass lineup. A couple renters at best, but of course, they're their flagship sequelfests that keep EA paid right?
that guy @ Jul 12th 2006 3:41PM
Ill Trooper - you seem to skip by so many details in your post. You say 'new options, new features, new music, and the new player or rule updates' - with Xbox Live (and I guess PS3 and Wii being online), the latter two can be done with any game from any year (theoretically) thanks to the most basic of online updates. But EA wants to sell as many copies as they can so they leave out features like that. You say 'new options' - which ones make each game so great year after year. As for new music - custom soundtracks (at least on Xbox). The end.
Then you say 'no one laughed at you for getting that Halo2 map pack.' You do realize (and I'm far from a Halo fanboy ... the single player in Halo 1 and 2 I thought was atrocious) how much went into those nine maps, right? Those weren't just thrown-together piles of garbage to make more cash. Halo 2 was released in 2004 and it's still the most-played Xbox Live game. Bungie/Microsoft could put out a new Halo game every year and make a killing, but they choose not to because they want to make something of QUALITY, such as the Map Pack. Also keep in mind that those nine maps were available free a few months after release to retail (some in fact were free on the first day of release).
Sorry, but the vast majority of EA sports franchises ARE rehashed crap. Same thing basically over and over and over again every year.
But hey, I guess if lame gamers want to keep buying 'em, whatever. You gotta love the status quo.
Matt Bailey @ Jul 12th 2006 3:42PM
Erm... Crysis wasn't mentioned in that press release like you suggest. It isn't due until 2007 - after all, it uses DirectX 10 which is in Vista (and we all know that's still a way off...). So many of you can strike that game off your list.
zombunny @ Jul 12th 2006 3:52PM
How many from that list, you ask? Precisely none of them.
I don't have the kit to play either Crysis/BF2142 (didn't want BF:MC so I've little reason to vigorously pursue the sequel) and "licensed sports yearly rehash 200x"...You're kidding, right?
Two things:
a)License= Focus on promotion and budget, not fun. Often SERIOUSly not fun.
b)I can buy a competitors title, same sport, no shackles, and oodles more fun to boot...Usually for less. ;) (often the licence is irrelevent to me anyway - I just want to play a basketball title, it doesn't matter who's playing to me, as long as the game's fun, and with a strong sense of its own identity.)
darko82 @ Jul 12th 2006 3:52PM
Actually, Crysis is listed as a Q4 2006 release on GameSpot, if that means anything.
LOKI @ Jul 12th 2006 3:56PM
FIFA 07 is slated for early OCT '06.
Baboon @ Jul 12th 2006 4:08PM
I don’t mean to insult or belittle anyone who does enjoy Sports games. I just don’t see the appeal. Sports are something that is very accessible in real life. If you are in college, I guarantee that you can find an intramural team that will have you in any sport you can think of. Also, it is usually very easy to get a game started by just going out to a field and throwing/kicking around the ball/disk/puck until enough interested parties happen by to start a game. As to the 11 at night idea, some of the most fun games of ultimate I have ever played were at night with a glowing Frisbee. And if you got enough exercise playing the game during the day, chances are you would be asleep by 11 at night.
I think one of the major aspects of the sports gaming industry that really turns me off is the annual updates. I don’t want to have to pay 60 bones a year to get a game I already have, just with a few different names on the little pixilated players. I simply don’t have the money to spend.
You are right that people who are obsessed with the sport will definitely make the purchase. I just don’t qualify. I have other things to do that interest me more than worrying about professional athlete’s individual statistics, much less their video game counterparts. For me sports are fun to watch every now and then, fun to play on a nice day, and a good way to get exercise. I just don’t have enough invested in them to want to play the virtual versions.
ill trooper @ Jul 12th 2006 4:25PM
"That Guy..."
I've skipped many details in my post because I don't know all of the new, different details that go into a yearly update for NCAA Football, NCAA Basketball, Madden, Tiger Woods, FIFA, etc.
But I can tell you that if you LIKE those games, you don't mind going and getting the new one once a year. It's fun. It's like a new LOTR, or Harry Potter, or Star Wars movie coming out - if you like it, it's interesting. If not, well, it's another special-effects fest with orcs and arrows, and it's popularity baffles you.
By the way... You mention 'Custom Soundtracks,' 'Downloadable new seasons...' On to what, the 20gig HD Microsoft gave us?
I understand your points. But did you understand mine? ANYTHING you don't like can be reduced to 'rehashed' - New Rolling Stones album? REHASH. New INTERPOL album? REHASH. New Lloyd Banks with a million G-Unit guest spots? REHASH. Nine new Halo maps? REHASH.
So really - what you're revealing to us, 'That Guy,' is if _you_ think it looks like a lot of work, it's not a rehash. For instance, you mention a lot of hard work and development went into those maps. I'm sure someone could come on here and explain how the new player movements or uniforms, or the infamous 'sweat' in NBA 06 represented as much work as the Halo maps. It's just a matter of taste or game preference.
I mean, really guy, I thought I made it pretty clear I was talking about people who ARE ALREADY ON BOARD with the sports games... While there may be rehashing occuring, there are also game-engine advances, and we have a whole new generation of machines coming out right now... Surely you understand that a 360 version of a game is likely to improve from launch to a year later? An upgrade for the game engine as a download might not be reasonable. A PS2 Madden won't be 'a download away' from being a PS3 version.
You know what though? I'm pretty sure if you disagreed with my first post, this one won't convince you either. So no worries.
Baboon @ Jul 12th 2006 4:42PM
-ill Trooper
I am gonna have to call you out on a few points you made. There is a big problem with saying a sequel to a movie or another album by an artist is a rehash. By that logic, the only original game was Pong. Everything else after that is a rehash.
Albums very rarely reuse songs, and almost never are all old songs. If ever they do, it is usually a "greatest hits" cd. If the artists just kept trying to sell a CD with the same 11 or so songs, just in a different order or slightly altered, their publishers would drop them.
Movies also don’t work. Lord of the Rings is a good example. Each of the successive movies in the story is a continuation of the tale, not the same tale with better CGI or an additional character or two. If we followed your reasoning, than every episode of Star Trek, every Sherlock Holmes story, every Spiderman comic book, and heck, any Jules Verne novel are all just rehashes of the first one.
The Halo maps you might have, if they had released them as a completely separate game, but they didn't. They are merely an add-on, an attempt to improve a game that has already been released, not an attempt to market the same thing as new. Every new madden game, with only a few exceptions, has just fixed things people had problems with and updated the players and teams for the New Year. That is why they are rehashes.
Anon @ Jul 12th 2006 4:50PM
>>Every new madden game, with only a few exceptions, has just fixed things people had problems with and updated the players and teams for the New Year. That is why they are rehashes.
You clearly don't play the Madden or NCAA games. Have you played Superstar mode at all? Do you realize that there are HUGE game modes added or major gameplay features (Hot Routes, QB Vision/Precision, Etc.) every year?
No? Because you don't play them.
that guy @ Jul 12th 2006 5:18PM
Ill Trooper, I do understand what you're trying to say, but it still doesn't sit well with me. You say that anything someone dislikes can be reduced to rehashed, but at least with me, that's far from the case. I don't care for any Rolling Stones album really (not my bag of tea), but am I going to say it's all rehashed crap, because I don't like? No. I respect the influence they've had on many other bands and understand that whether I like it or not, they've put out some rock masterpieces.
Now going back to EA sports games, the same doesn't hold true (and Baboon words this much better than I tried to). The Halo maps were add-ons - free add-ons - and again as Baboon said, were never meant to be a new game. Their sole purpose was to make an existing game better. But EA doesn't do that with, say, their Madden games. Instead of releasing Madden: Next-Gen (yeah, yeah, lame title but work with me here), a game that doesn't HAVE to be replaced every year (as Madden '05, '06, '07 seem to), they just keep pouring out games year after year, and it's all a cash grab. They aren't trying to make sports games truly better. More proof of that is the fact that they pay for an exclusivity deal so no other developer can even MAKE an NFL game. To me, that just sucks.
Anywho, we can continue this if you'd like. All the power to you if you want to buy and play these EA games year after year. Me, I'll pass.
Cage @ Jul 12th 2006 5:26PM
Baboon-
So because its the same sport and its EA its a rehash? There are often many upgrades between years on their franchises. I for one dont buy the game every year. I buy every other year. How else am I going to play with Reggie Bush! As for those that want to "go out and play the sport", when was the last time you would be able to call up your friends, get pads, get a few refs, and play a football game. If you dont like sports games then dont post. People could easily call you NERDS for playing role playing games...
Baboon @ Jul 12th 2006 5:47PM
-Cage
It is not a rehash because it is the same sport. Nor are all games in the Madden line rehashes of each other. Every now and then, a major positive change on how the games are organized comes along. Those are not rehashes, they are new games. But many of them don’t add a feature big enough that it changes the game. A few of the additions have been optional.
As to the pads/refs comment, that is why they invented flag/touch football and intramural leagues, and if you are not in college, self regulation. It is a good deal safer than playing in the NFL too.
And, I would like to state that yes, I am a nerd, or a geek, or whatever you would like to call me. I am an electrical engineering student, I enjoy lugging a cloth house around on my back so I can live for a few days exposed to the elements, I find the discovery and history channels interesting, and I love games where I get to do something I could never do in real life. I am not ashamed of my interests, and as I have said before, I do not think anyone who enjoys sports games should be ashamed of theirs. Yes, I may not care about sports games, but I care about the gaming industry. I just don't think you should let EA do this to you all the time.
Killer Instinct @ Jul 12th 2006 7:27PM
half of that lineup is the same every year (madden....)
Sean DL @ Jul 12th 2006 8:48PM
"Yes, I may not care about sports games, but I care about the gaming industry. I just don't think you should let EA do this to you all the time."
Well you'll have to fight about 30 million games who buy EA Sports games every year and have to tell them not to let EA do that to them.
Just like they should let Microsoft do that to them or Apple to let them do that to them.
Their just isn't a need to see post after post bashing people who buy these games, just like their isn't a need to see post after post that bash people who buy Final Fantasy in a Square-Enix news story.
I think all this bashing is hurts the industry, more so then what people like and buy year after year.
Sean DL @ Jul 12th 2006 8:49PM
Oh, but you can bash EA on messing up games that they "bought out"....
That's always fair game. ha ha
Jarrett @ Jul 13th 2006 10:13AM
I have to say that Sports games have found a niche over the years. Whether you guys agree with EA or dislike EA's approach...bottomline is their games sell. I have three sons. All of them like NBA Live, NFL Street, Madden, NCAA, Tiger Woods etc. They all play those sports as much as they can at school as well. Can't knock the hustle if it is making money.
I tend to agree with ill trooper....How many times can you fight WWII ..really? How many Medal of Honor games are out there? Call of Duty is on what 3 now. Now we have Brothers in Arms??? Why??? Because it sells. You wouldn't catch me dead playing Final Fantasy..but someone likes it ..because it sells. You guys either need to take a marketing class or economics because business are looking to squeeze every dollar they can out of a franchise. I hate the idea of that but that is capitalism at it's best.
Baboon @ Jul 13th 2006 10:44AM
-Jarret
Oh, I never said it doesn't sell. I just don't think that is what it is about. I agree with just about every other point you made as well. I guess the reason I get mad is the same as when I see a book made to just tie in with a movie, or a great song like Bittersweet Symphony stolen from the artists to market shoes. I don’t think a game should be made simply to make money. I see the potential for video games as art, and I hate to see it overly commercialized all the time. But that is a subject for another time and place.
marsel @ Jul 13th 2006 11:42AM
crysis si def on my list, waiting and building on my new comp around it. far cry is one of my favorite games ever, so if those crytek guys come anywhere close, im getting it.
dont really care for the other games from EA, tho i dont avoid them on purpose either. i do wich crytek had stayed with ubisoft tho. oh well.
jimy @ Jul 13th 2006 11:52AM
Rent NCAA Football
BUY Madden NFL, ASAP
Rent NASCAR
Skip NHL
Rent Tiger Woods PGA Tour
Buy NBA Live, if the Celtics get A.I.
Buy NFL Street.
Buy The Godfather
BUY Need for Speed Carbon, ASAP
Skip Superman Returns
Think about Battlefield 2142 and Crysis, most likely a no.
EA makes the best games.