Analysts sound off: What does EA do next?

by Alexander Sliwinski { Dec 5th 2007 at 7:00PM }

Long after Gerstmanngate ends, we'll still be dealing with the ramifications of Activision Blizzard and what Electronic Arts plans to do against them. GameDaily put out some juice boxes, a tub of buttery popcorn, a few sleeping bags and had a good old-fashioned analyst slumber party. The usual suspects chimed in with their predictions of what EA is going to do next against Actizzard (no, that doesn't click either, still working on it).

Mike Hickey, Janco Partners: Believes EA will continue to focus on improving game quality, developing the Asian market, cutting operating costs ... and might be making an acquisition. Who do they suggest? Take-Two. EA would gain the Grand Theft Auto franchise, along with BioShock, Midnight Club and Civilization, and would also take control of EA Sport's only adversary worth mentioning -- 2K Sports.
Michael Pachter, Wedbush Morgan Securities: Doesn't think EA will do anything and that buying Ubisoft would be too expensive. He also believes EA has no interest in Take-Two, as it would require too much work and there's no guarantee in keeping the talent. He further notes that Rockstar becomes a free agent in 14 months, so rather than fear it pulling a Bungie, it's better to pick the developer up when that happens.
Colin Sebastian, Lazard Capital Markets: Says that EA has enough on its plate right now. Acquiring a majority stake in Ubisoft could be an option.
David Cole, DFC Intelligence: Thinks EA needs to take a deep breath and plan, since it's still too focused on the American market and needs to think globally -- that'll take some time and the right connections.

Four men, four different views. Who are you putting your money on?

Tags: activision-blizzard, analyst, ea

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

KaptainK @ Dec 5th 2007 7:10PM

Actizzard?

how about Activizzard?

Wonderflex @ Dec 5th 2007 7:12PM

No...we all know that Blizarivision is the best option. Or if this were an early 90's Nickolodeon toy, "BlizViz."

steve @ Dec 5th 2007 7:34PM

How about B-vision!

rTwelve @ Dec 6th 2007 1:56AM

I choose you, Actizard!

Fernando Rocker @ Dec 5th 2007 7:09PM

Well... maybe I'm crazy, but lately, EA is been doing a better job.

Activision is sucking more than EA.

aahatimy @ Dec 5th 2007 7:46PM

I agree EA has been doing somethings right lately such as Sk8 which has blown a load of fresh air the skating genre which was left to rot buy the Tony Hawk series and with some original IPs being announced such as Army of Two which got delayed to make sure the game comes out right well EA said that but others would beg to differ.

colin @ Dec 5th 2007 8:13PM

"which has blown a load of fresh air"

that made me lol

but army of two is supposed to be shite.

aahatimy @ Dec 5th 2007 8:22PM

What!!!! Where did you hear this. Show me the link that Army of Two is suppose to be shit.

colin @ Dec 5th 2007 9:20PM

x3f did a story on it ... xbox world apparently said it blew.

http://www.xbox360fanboy.com/2007/12/05/army-of-two-dubbed-army-of-sh-t-by-xbox-world/

Anticrawl @ Dec 5th 2007 9:41PM

Yeah it's that story on X3F where everyone voted down Johan Falcon for wantiing to wait til the game is done to pass judgement...

Seriously guys did Johan get caught raping one of the blog writings daughter or something, everyone seems to hate him.

..I thought it all sounded reasonable, what did I miss while I was taking finals?

colin @ Dec 5th 2007 10:40PM

idk, some people don't like it when you express your opinion. they insist that you are wrong, and when you argue with them, they vote you down and say you are a troll. i remember i got blasted for saying that gabe from penny arcade had a dirty mouth (in regards to a webpost he made). people are quick to jump on the hate-train. lots of haters out there. like willie herenton, i just try to shake em off.

aahatimy @ Dec 5th 2007 10:47PM

I don't know it still seems abit early to make judgements. Xbox World said the game had worse graphics than PD2. I want some of what they are smoking (and I'm not even a drug user).

I'm not an expert on games development so correct me if I am wrong but wouldn't a beta version of a game normally have lower quality graphics than the final build. I always thought the beta version was mainly to test out the code, engine and other shit.

I predict this game will be a really good game but not the best there is and not even close. A reasonable score of 8.3/4.

petaH @ Dec 5th 2007 7:23PM

Very cool chess set - where can I buy it?

The Artist formally known as Jesus @ Dec 5th 2007 7:16PM

EA's next move
They buy Sony only to find out it does more harm than good.

TheMayor87 @ Dec 5th 2007 7:18PM

Come on, guys, "Blactivision" is the obvious winner here.

Hack @ Dec 5th 2007 7:18PM

It generally sounds like just PR hype right now (which seems to support the professional comments). EA can't become "bigger" than AB, so it's just going to perform as another major publisher. I can't imagine much changing...

Marty @ Dec 5th 2007 7:25PM

My guess is that EA will continue making games, and Blizzactivision will follow suit. Just a guess, though.

XanthouS @ Dec 5th 2007 7:28PM

What SHOULD EA do?

Rethink it's approach to gaming. Begin spending it's infinite pool of money on developing quality games. Invest in some original IPs. Quit crapping out poorly made movie spin-offs and the same sports games year after year.

What WILL EA do?

Buy a controlling share of Ubisoft, causing many of their creative minds to leave the company to form smaller development houses and destroying well established series like Prince of Persia.

aahatimy @ Dec 5th 2007 7:36PM

2K Sports is the only adversary worth mentioning? I don't know about other sports but when it comes to football (soccer as the North American fellow gamers would call it) games I'd rather have the Pro Evolution Soccer (Winning Eleven) series for on the pitch simulation instead of the Fifa (even though given its due it has come very close to Pro Evo this year) and I would also have the Football Manager (I think it is called Worldwide Soccer Manager outside Europe) which is developed by Sports Interactive and Sega publish it.

steve @ Dec 5th 2007 7:42PM

Please use less parenthesis.

aahatimy @ Dec 5th 2007 8:03PM

Well I shall try only because you said the magic word.

Anyway what about reversing the name from Activision Blizzard to Blizzard Activision so that the abreviation can be BA which beats EA because B comes before E but a major issue would be with British Airways.

Ethan @ Dec 5th 2007 7:36PM

Ubisoft have made a lot of my favourite games. EA have made none. I don't want their fingers any further in that pie.

Organic_Shadow @ Dec 5th 2007 7:47PM

I agree with option A, except for the 2K part. I think EA would rather hand pick a few developers that are under the Take-Two/2K wing than take on the whole bloody mess of financial troubles and legal matters they are going through at once.

Seems like EA just had a big ole' dinner and now they need to nap a bit before having some cake or pie. So I think they are going to chill for a little while. At least until after E3 of next year.

Lemmiwinks @ Dec 5th 2007 7:50PM

How 'bou Actard.

Korova @ Dec 5th 2007 7:56PM

I am putting ma maney on ubisoft

SoulBlade @ Dec 5th 2007 8:12PM

EA keeps talking about a unified console. I'd be curious to see if they're doing all of this to meet that goal. They probably have contracts that prevent them from doing this, but imagine if they just pulled some of their titles like Madden from the mainstream consoles and tried it out only on their own. They'd have the dev talent (assuming they don't peace out) to back it up too.

Of course, that's pretty long term, and if they're trying for the Asian market, they probably wouldn't succeed there a la Xbox. My guess is they'll keep pumping out cookie cutter games - churn out a new IP here and there with their new talent, and make another purchase within a couple of years.

deadjesterx @ Dec 5th 2007 8:54PM

No, no, no, it's gotta be Blivendivision.

Anyway, I don't think EA really need to do much. They seem to be making a valid attempt at new IPs, though how many of these new IPs become franchise worthy remains to be seen.

In any case I figure their best bet is to just cherry pick developers. Why pay a ton of money on a merger when, for a mere fraction of the cost, they can just aquire the best developers they can get their hands on?

BPM - The Revenge @ Dec 5th 2007 10:59PM

EA:
Just a few steps away from controlling EARTH.

[sigh]

labrats5 @ Dec 5th 2007 11:16PM

the idea that EA is too focused on the American Market is not true. You just need to look at sales numbers to know that. Even after Activision became the #1 3rd party publisher in America EA was still #1 in Europe by a long shot.

EA is eating money because its brand is dying due to half-baked annual releases. Maybe the madden fans don't care, but the Need For Speed fans do. NFS used to be EA's most profitable console game because it sold so well in both the US and Europe. But Pro Street's sales are a joke compared to Carbon's, which in turn were nothing compared to Underground's. EA needs to develop more IP's and adopt a more reasonable development cycle for its big franchises. If it doesn't only sports games and The Sims will left, which is not enough to be a top player.