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MachLz1 |
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| Posted: Sunday, April 20, 2008 at
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| Im not totally confident there will be a Tiger Woods 2009 for the PC. I know EA Sports is not releasing a PC version of Madden Football 2009 and that has me very worried. Hopefully they are not going to scrap the PC platform altogether. We shall see. I have an Xbox 360, but the PC version, hands down, plays better. Much more realistic. |
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ZB |
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| Posted: Monday, April 21, 2008 at
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Every year at around this time, the question of whether there will be a new release of the TW series gets asked. Every year, some spout doom and gloom for the future of the game and every year, some continue to jump onto the slam EA bandwagon. I do wonder whether anyone has bothered to actually ask EA themselves? Probably not, as it is of course, far easier to spout doom and gloom and then slam EA with ones own views on whats wrong instead of letting them know, whats right.
In some ways, I agree that it is easy to fall into the trap of believing there may be danger in the continual development of our favourate game for the PC platform, especially when reading the following, which was written by the EA Sports President (Peter Moore) himself, on his web blog at EA. However, at no point does the chap actually cite our game as being one of the titles giving them challenge.
Those who slam EA do nothing but make themselves look like fools and do not do anything positive for the future of this game in the eyes of EA.
The following is quoted direct from EA Sports President, Peter Moores website blog:
PC Games – While we’re committed to the PC as a sports game platform, it’s certainly not a platform without its business challenges due in large part because so many of you have migrated to the console as your primary platform. I think on-line will give us some innovative new ways to re-vitalize the PC sports business again, and we’ ll keep pushing from our end to make that happen. But in the meantime, understand that while we have a limited lineup of EA SPORTS games coming this summer and fall to the PC, we do continue to weigh our options on PC.
The feedback posts on specific titles are very valuable to the teams, and we continue to forward them on. “EA SPORTS S U C K S” posts are less informative and helpful. You are very welcome to exercise your first amendment rights here, but it would be more beneficial for both of us if you can put some specificity around your gripes.
My personal understanding is that EA sports and Tiger Woods, have a contractual obligation to each other till 2012. Maybe I am wrong, however if this is the case, then we should be seeing this game being produced until that date and therefore, these questions every year asking if there will be a new release, would be irrelevent until 2012.
Just MHO of course. |
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DivotMaker |
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| Posted: Monday, April 21, 2008 at
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| I have asked EA twice about TW09 for PC and have yet to receive an answer. One can only imagine the silence may be for a reason. I am sure we will hear something official soon. Lets not lose any sleep over something until we know for sure. |
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jurgie |
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| Posted: Monday, April 21, 2008 at
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| Unless I am mistaken and please correct me If I am, but it seems to me that when Microsoft abandoned the Links Platform back in 2002, Take Two was the studio that purchased the rights to the game, or they were at least in negotiations to do so. At least I think they still as of now have the rights to it. I know at the time this went down, there was wild speculation by many Linksters that the game would finally be upgraded to a 3D enviroment. It has been almost five years now and absolutely nothing has happened. I am almost sure that Microsoft cannot reintroduce the Links Platform even if they wanted to since that now lies in somebody elses hands. Why aquire the rights to a gaming platform and then simply shelf it? I for one would be very interested to know what those reasons are. |
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| Posted: Monday, April 21, 2008 at
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| edited by: Gunpower61 on
Monday, April 21, 2008 at
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Take 2 still owns the Links IP and have buried it. They have expressed ZERO interest in resurrecting the Links franchise which is sad. However, I do think this is due to the nature of Golf games in general that they dont do all that well commercially as they are a niche category. That being said, there are two things I am excited about, CPG Golf 2 (currently beta testing and it looks and plays dramatically superior to CPG1 which I hated). The second item is a report that states that TW08 was the 18th best selling franchise of ANY game since its release last August at 2.3 million copies. I am going to assume that the PC version was a distant 4th or 5th to the 360/PS3 and PS2 versions. I have never seen any evidence until now that the TW series was competitive with Madden and FIFA(5.7 million copies sold through April 9). Maybe this is a hint that EA will possibly continue with TW09 for PC as Peter Moore stated that they would still be shipping some PC sports titles this year.....
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jurgie |
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| Posted: Monday, April 21, 2008 at
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| edited by: jurgie on
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"Take 2 still owns the Links IP and have buried it. They have expressed ZERO interest in resurrecting the Links franchise which is sad. However, I do think this is due to the nature of Golf games in general that they dont do all that well commercially as they are a niche category. That being said, there are two things I am excited about, CPG Golf 2 (currently beta testing and it looks and plays dramatically superior to CPG1 which I hated). The second item is a report that states that TW08 was the 18th best selling franchise of ANY game since its release last August at 2.3 million copies. I am going to assume that the PC version was a distant 4th or 5th to the 360/PS3 and PS2 versions. I have never seen any evidence until now that the TW series was competitive with Madden and FIFA(5.7 million copies sold through April 9). Maybe this is a hint that EA will possibly continue with TW09 for PC as Peter Moore stated that they would still be shipping some PC sports titles this year.....
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This is really quite interesting, in the sense that as little as ten years ago I would have fully understood a cautious approach of marketing golf simulations. They never really generated a tremendous amount of interest amongst sports gaming enthusiasts. Nowadays it is a whole different ballgame. It seems to be gaining more popularity all the time, proven by the tremendous amount of prize money, tournament expansion and a number of other factors. If marketed correctly, I am hard pressed to believe that a solid PC golf simulation would not be wildly popular not to mention profitable for any game maker accepting this task. We all know that console graphics are not even remotely in the same ballpark as to what a PC version has to offer. Can you imagine a program like the APCD with 3D rendering capabilities? |
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ZB |
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| Posted: Tuesday, April 22, 2008 at
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What is perhaps even more interesting is this press release from EA from 24th Feb this year.
AN OPEN LETTER from JOHN RICCITIELLO
I’m pleased to announce that EA has made a proposal to acquire Take-Two. We’ve issued a press release that explains why the deal is attractive for the shareholders of both Take-Two and EA. Now I want to share some perspective on why it would be good for the people who make Take-Two’s games and, just as important, the people who play them.
In a recent presentation, I told a group of developers that our industry is facing big challenges. Development costs are rising dramatically and games that aren’t big hits struggle to reach profitability. Most independent studios don’t have much margin for error. The result has been consolidation – large publishers are merging and independent developers are more amenable to being acquired. Unfortunately, our industry has a spotty record on integrating creative teams. We’ve all heard the stories about teams that got mismanaged in a merger – I know I’ve got a few.
I like to think that we learn from our experience. When I came back to EA last year, we introduced a new organization model that respects creative cultures and gives developers more freedom. We call it the “Label” model because it treats each of EA’s four labels as a sovereign entity responsible for its own creative decisions and business results. We expect each team to operate on a profit plan and, in exchange, we provide investment, infrastructure and a lot of creative freedom.
Has it worked at EA? It’s too early to say for sure, but the initial feedback is encouraging. Many of the people at Digital Illusions in Stockholm, Criterion in the UK, Mythic in Virginia, and more recently BioWare and Pandemic will tell you that so far, the experience at EA has been good. If you know people who work for these studios, I’d encourage you to talk to them. Ask them about our Label organization model. It’s the model we hope to use with Take-Two.
Right now, Take-Two’s future is uncertain. Take-Two’s creative teams make fantastic games and the company has gotten some good interim support from a group of new corporate leaders. But Take-Two is facing a host of threats and – with or without combination with EA – we believe there is a strong likelihood that the company will be sold in the not-too-distant future.
We also believe that EA’s proposal to acquire Take-Two is a good one for the people that make the games or are involved in leading these creative teams. We’re offering stable management with an executive team that truly understands games. EA has a powerful publishing capability. We want to offer these and other advantages to Take-Two’s creative teams and provide them an environment that shields these teams from unnecessary interference and allows them to keep making great games.
For people who buy and play games, know that we too are fans of Take-Two and Rockstar products and feel we can provide their creative teams with the support they deserve to continue to bring you more of their great games in the future.
So, that’s it. We’ve made a proposal to buy Take-Two. Our preference is to make this a friendly transaction and I’m hopeful we can achieve that. We’ve sent this proposal in the genuine belief that combining EA and Take-Two would be good for the people who make games and good for the people who play them.
I sincerely hope we get a chance to prove it.
John Riccitiello |
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jurgie |
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| Posted: Tuesday, April 22, 2008 at
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| This is very interesting indeed. I am just not sure to what degree that this aquisition by EA Sports would would benefit the PC golf enthusiast. I really dont think they would be interested in the least of upgrading and facelifting the Links golf sim. Actually, in my opinion this is the platform that would offer the greatest possibilities if upgraded and rendered in a 3D format. As it stands now, unless you are a advid on-line player, the TW platform offers a PC player very little except those tournaments built into the game. The Facemaker feature is the shining star in the entire platform. In the Links platform, the Player Anis stink, infact they were much better in the 2001 series. The game interface is a dream come true for a person who wants to create his own schedule of tournaments. Infact, you are able to create multiple tournaments within the game at the same time. This for example allows a player to create a European, PGA, Champions and Nation Wide Tour schedules and have them all appear in the game at the same time. The APCD although a great designing program needs to be revamped for 3D render. I refer to it affectionately as Post Card golf. Pretty rendered scenes but unfortunately no or very little movement. Using the APCD in 3D might take a course designer several month to complete a custom course, but I think it would be well worth the wait. Several Linksters have been trying to aquire the L2K3 code for quite some time now. I dont think that will ever happen, especially with the light that you have shed in regards to this possible aquisition by EA. What benefits do you see for the PC golfer, if indeed this transition does become a reality? |
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TruBluMich |
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| Posted: Tuesday, April 22, 2008 at
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...and Take Twos response was????
http://kotaku.com/360147/the-take+two-letters-ea-rejected |
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jurgie |
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| Posted: Tuesday, April 22, 2008 at
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| Thank you for that link TBM. Wow, what a read. Its going to take me sometime to digest all of this. For me however it does solidify many impressions that I have formed over the years regarding the EA franchise. |
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ZB |
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| Posted: Wednesday, April 23, 2008 at
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Having read the response, it still reads clearly, that Take-Two will sell eventually. Reading the exchanges between the two organisations suggests to me that the opening bid was too low but the concept of a takeover would not be unwelcome.
Throughout the letters, Take-Two continuously boast their plans for turnaround and potential higher value and the fact that this may not yet be recognised in the current stock price, hence EAs lower offer being rejected as that was based on public information to hand.
Take-Two are doing nothing more than hoping to see whether GTA4 will give a boost to their stock price so that they can leverage a higher price out of EA.
Reading further, they clearly state they wish to discuss a merger once GTA4 has been released, 30th April. I believe EA will still play hardball and although GTA4 is a hugely popular game franchise, it is the only title that has any real clout for Take-Two. If stock prices are not increasing over this quiet period, then I think EA will still be buying Take-Two at a bargain price.
As for whether this will provide potential benefit to the TW series for the PC, no-one knows, nor can they speculate other than to recognise that TAKE-TWO products are created for the console these days, so I wouldnt hold my breath.
As the global credit crunch really hits home, I believe there will only be further acquisitions within the gaming industry. It looks as though EA has the financial backing and respected clout to take the lead in this route.
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jimi |
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| Posted: Wednesday, April 23, 2008 at
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| The way I read it, EA is threathening a hostile takeover. It will be interesting to see which way this goes. |
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jurgie |
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| Posted: Wednesday, April 23, 2008 at
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| "The way I read it, EA is threathening a hostile takeover. It will be interesting to see which way this goes." |
You are right jimi, I was left with the same impression. |
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bullaguard |
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| Posted: Thursday, April 24, 2008 at
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| http://www.easports.com/tigerwoods09/ is up. No PC version listed on pre-order |
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ZB |
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| Posted: Thursday, April 24, 2008 at
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| Doesnt mean theres not going to be a PC version. |
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DivotMaker |
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| Posted: Thursday, April 24, 2008 at
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| "Doesnt mean theres not going to be a PC version." |
It also does not bode well for a PC version either. I have asked EA three times if there is going to be a PC version of 09 and I have yet to receive a reply which speaks volumes that the decision has already been made......I know nothing official has been announced, but this pretty much tells me all I need to know. |
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ZB |
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| Posted: Thursday, April 24, 2008 at
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Well, when I asked yesterday, I was given the answer that it should be sometime in the 4th quarter this year. Obviously, they wouldnt give me a date because they would normally communicate via a press release.
The info may of course, have been a diversionary or delaying tactic, should there not be PC version coming out, or of course, the person giving the info simply didnt have any real info and was just suggesting the 4th qtr as a guess.
Who knows? One thing is certain in my mind however, just because EA do not provide the info to us (and bear in mind it is only April, which is still some 5/6 months from an expected release date) doesnt leave me with the same thought as Divotmaker...I prefer to be optimistic and will wait for official news before jumping on that doom and gloom bandwagon. |
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eagls628 |
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| Posted: Thursday, April 24, 2008 at
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| What gets me is instead of EA saying things like it should be out this fall and we havent made up our mind yet and so on, if they were smart they would just say something like the information cannot be released yet |
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| Posted: Thursday, April 24, 2008 at
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| "Who knows? One thing is certain in my mind however, just because EA do not provide the info to us (and bear in mind it is only April, which is still some 5/6 months from an expected release date) doesnt leave me with the same thought as Divotmaker...I prefer to be optimistic and will wait for official news before jumping on that doom and gloom bandwagon." |
One difference between you and I...my source is the TW Executive Producer. If he is not even responding to my questions, then I dont have a good feel for the 09 version being released on PC..... |
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jmeier |
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| Posted: Thursday, April 24, 2008 at
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| In the long run, it may end up being beneficial if EA pulls out now from the pc platform. If you look back over the last several years, each release has gone downhill to some extent. 08 did make a few steps forward. EA bought out Papyrus Nascar Sim many years back, butchered it for the PC, and then let it die. Now just a few weeks ago, A new Nascar Sim has been released for the PC that is far beyond the arcade type stuff EA had out. I think once EA is out of the way, somebody like CPG2 or even T2 may be able to get a strong foothold in that space and do something better. Right now, good or bad, the TW series has the market locked up. |
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