Microsoft reportedly had to cancel a sports game for the original Xbox, because EA demanded it.
When you think of sports games, the first developer you’ll likely think of isEA. While the company has plenty of other franchises under its belt likeThe Sims,Mass Effectand most recentlyStar Wars, it’s best-known for sporting series likeFIFAor Madden NFL.
EA’s latest sports game isEA Sports FC 24, which you can check out below
EA’s supremacy over sports games has rarely been challenged, much to the dismay of fans who’ve beenless than happywith some of the company’s newest releases, many of which are considered to be either the same game again, or an inferior version.
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The company reportedly flexed its dominance in the early 2000s with the originalXbox, when it forced a first-party soccer game into cancellation.
SEGA unfortunately left console warfare behind with the SEGA Dreamcast, which bombed despite having some great titles on it likeSonic Adventure, Crazy Taxi,andJet Set Radio.
Young said one of the theories from Microsoft on why SEGA lost the console race was due to it having no support from EA on the Dreamcast, a mistake the company wanted to avoid at all costs.
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This led to a deal with EA to bring several sports games onto the new platform, but unfortunately clashed with a first-party soccer game Young was working on, which had to be scrapped entirely to uphold the agreement.
In a way, it was likely for the best, as the support from EA was likely a driving factor in getting new Xbox consoles to consumers and eventually making it the Sony/PlayStationcompetitor it is today.
Maybe if SEGA had pushed more for EA games on the Dreamcast, it’d still be part of the modern-day console wars, unlikely given the quality of Nintendo’s games, but definitely something to think about.
Topics:Xbox,EA,FIFA
