Thick Thighs Save Lives
Gold Member
PlayStation Had The Chance To Steal FIFA From EA In The '90s, But Passed
"I think EA would have responded quite badly to that"
www.timeextension.com
-
Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.
PlayStation Had The Chance To Steal FIFA From EA In The '90s, But Passed
- Thread starter Thick Thighs Save Lives
- Start date
- News Retro
www.timeextension.com
EverydayBeast
thinks Halo Infinite is a new graphical benchmark
Pro evolution was big for Sony.
Beer Baelly
Al Pachinko, Konami President
Damn, I remember Adidas soccer lol. Field would be full skid marks
lh032
I cry about Xbox and hate PlayStation.
Tom Messi.
Cristiano Holland.
Dick Jones
Gold Member
Pro Evolution 5 was the peak of football.
I last played FIFA 2017 [I think or was it 2018] that came free with my PS4 Pro RDR2 bundle. I'd rather pay a tenner to play the PES5 classic than play any new one. I was an awkward cunt with West Midlands City. Heskey & Clinton Morrison bay-bee!!!
I last played FIFA 2017 [I think or was it 2018] that came free with my PS4 Pro RDR2 bundle. I'd rather pay a tenner to play the PES5 classic than play any new one. I was an awkward cunt with West Midlands City. Heskey & Clinton Morrison bay-bee!!!
Beer Baelly
Al Pachinko, Konami President
With skrong female lead
Dick Jones
Gold Member
Hudo
Member
I mean, there's women football. And apparently it's quite more brutal than the male counterpart (where most male football players whine like little bitches for every little thing)
Last edited:
Daneel Elijah
Gold Member
This. Konami would have been pissed and Sony probably valued them a lot more than EA I think.
Hudo
Member
Whatever happened with Sega and EA? I know that EA pulled their games from Sega's platforms. Was it because Sega decided to make some sports games themselves (that were in direct competition to EA's stuff?) or was it that EA pulled their sports games because of some deals with other platform manufacturers (Sony) and Sega had to fill the gaps themselves (which pissed off EA)?
I only remember that there was some beef between Sega and EA.
Daneel Elijah
Gold Member
No idea. I was a kid back then and did not really follow the industry. But I remember reading here on Neogaf that Microsoft did all they could to interest them on the Xbox, like ending their own sport game(s?). Sega with the myriads of problems they had at the time probably burned too many bridges with them and with options elsewhere EA just abandonned them I think.
thicc_girls_are_teh_best
should know better. A little help?
Last edited:
Nankatsu
Gold Member
How the mighty have fallen. Pro Evolution was so damn good, part of my childhood gathering friends at home and doing tournaments.
squarealex
Member
This is for the best I think.
SkylineRKR
Member
Winning Eleven/PES was absurdly good on PS1 and PS2. It blew FIFA out of the water on annual basis. ISS Pro '98 (WE3?) was so good. And the franchise absolutely peaked on PS2. I was addicted to WE7 for a year straight.
They fucked up on Gen 7. The 360 version of PES 6 was better than FIFA 07 but rather mediocre. With each year they managed to make them worse, I don't know what happened. I knew it wasn't me as when I loaded up PES on the fucking PSP I felt its PS2 era physics and I liked it more.
About the EA/Sega thing, basically EA wanted to release their sports games on DC, but didn't accept competiton. Bernie Stolar who had just bought Visual Concepts disagreed and went on to release their own NFL 2K, and EA backed out.
They fucked up on Gen 7. The 360 version of PES 6 was better than FIFA 07 but rather mediocre. With each year they managed to make them worse, I don't know what happened. I knew it wasn't me as when I loaded up PES on the fucking PSP I felt its PS2 era physics and I liked it more.
About the EA/Sega thing, basically EA wanted to release their sports games on DC, but didn't accept competiton. Bernie Stolar who had just bought Visual Concepts disagreed and went on to release their own NFL 2K, and EA backed out.
Hudo
Member
Thanks for the input! So that's how it was...
EA also had a share of 3DFX, and they were pissed that Sega picked NEC over them.
demigod
Member
Really? That doesn’t make sense because Sony had NFL Gameday with 989 Studios.
AJUMP23
Gold Member
I think there is a fifa movie on Netflix. Or I remember some streaming service having a miniseries abut the creation of fifa.
Too late for that,
I recall it made under 1000 usd at the us premiere with atleast 1 theater only selling a single ticket
Mibu no ookami
Member
Would have been like putting lipstick on a pig for Sony. They didn't have the game to sell the FIFA brand. Would have taken tremendous resources and would have alienated partners that they absolutely needed and relied on at the time.
That being said the FIFA brand is so important to Sony right now, that I think they could very easily take a stab at it, especially if they were to buy T2.
I think that Sony has to recognize that it's not just the cost of getting the license and related licenses, but the cost of whether Microsoft does. It could potentially cost them their foothold in Europe.
I've long believed Sony should have created a Sony Sports brand since they shuttered 989 Sports.
That being said the FIFA brand is so important to Sony right now, that I think they could very easily take a stab at it, especially if they were to buy T2.
I think that Sony has to recognize that it's not just the cost of getting the license and related licenses, but the cost of whether Microsoft does. It could potentially cost them their foothold in Europe.
I've long believed Sony should have created a Sony Sports brand since they shuttered 989 Sports.
Aenima
Member
I just watched the finals of womens football between the 2 bigest clubs in my country, and was like watching 15 year olds rookie players play. They had some good ball controll skills, but lacked speed and power. Its like watching a friendly match.
SkylineRKR
Member
Yes and Total NBA etc. But it could make sense. Sony with its installed base was hard to ignore for any publisher, perhaps EA thought they had some leverage on Sega who was ofcourse in a very dire position. I can imagine you don't want direct competition on a Sega console since its userbase was so small.
More specific Probst from EA wanted no other third parties on there, Stolar agreed but pointed out they had to compete with now first party Visual Concepts and it fell through. I think we can all agree 2K murdered Madden (and NBA Live). But DC would lose out on FIFA, which might've been a good asset in Europe. VC ofcourse had no football/soccer game.
True. EA was also pissed off about this.
But I think Stolar didn't lie, as he specifically mentioned clashing with Larry Probst who he knew very well.
Last edited:
PES was everything in those days, FIFA sucked hard. The demise of PES didn't lead to me starting to play FIFA I just stopped playing the genre entirely which seems somewhat weird given I am a massive fan of the sport IRL. What they've done with FUT makes me nauseous and is a big sign to me that gaming has moved on and I am the outlier. Kind of like how 99% of mobile gaming and most GaaS is just not relevant to me.
Hudo
Member
I am not really a sports game enthusiast. What happened with PES? I remember reading in magazines about "FIFA vs. PES!" for some years. And then PES kinda seemed to have faded away. Was it mishandling of the IP by Konami?
NeoIkaruGAF
Gold Member
Imagine having the FIFA rights tied to a game like Adidas Power Soccer for a decade or more.
Meanwhile Konami's soccer would probably have stolen EA's thunder way before the golden era of PES in the 2000s.
Meanwhile Konami's soccer would probably have stolen EA's thunder way before the golden era of PES in the 2000s.
There was a rumor back then then EA pirated the developers from PES and that made Fifa better. I don’t know how true that was.
FourFourTwo Magazine did a video on the history of FIFA games etc last week that was a good watch, it mentioned this in it, the video also explains that simply the main problem with the FIFA licence is it literally come with nothing except the rights for the World Cup, it’s borderline throwing money down the drain, EA have signed deals with all the leagues and clubs individually to make that series what it is now as explained in the video so I’m not sure Sony actually missed out on anything by not taking the licence.
Last edited:
TrebleShot
Member
There’s absolutely nothing stopping Sony from making a football game and obtaining the Fifapro license that gives them all the players likeness and names then doing what fifa has done and negotiate with each club for private licences like EFootball does.
EA had to negotiate a license for each league now such as premier league etc.
EA had to negotiate a license for each league now such as premier league etc.
The question
EA's products have a pretty iron stranglehold on this market - hell they've had it for over a decade, and the IP is arguably bigger than COD (license dependency aside).
Is there anything to gain with it now though?
EA's products have a pretty iron stranglehold on this market - hell they've had it for over a decade, and the IP is arguably bigger than COD (license dependency aside).
Well the question is valid - whether EA would have been as successful as they are today without it. The game makes them close to half of their annual revenue...
ChorizoPicozo
Member
they should "steal" PES and make it great again
Lillie
Member
Surely this one. She was great in Sex Education on Netflix
When is this idiot going to appologize to ETH
It’s not the FIFA licence though, that’s the point, that licence effectively gives you nothing, EA have negotiated deals with each league and clubs individually, if Sony acquired the rights it would have been no different to Pro Evo, just called FIFA with fake club names and fake player names, exactly as the early FIFA games actually were, the YouTube video I posted explains it all, there was nothing whatsoever stopping Sony accusing these individual rights and making a football game. Pro Evo was the better game for years and years but it was the authenticity of the club names and individual licences that EA negotiated separately that grew EA’s games into what they are, not being called “FIFA”
Dick Jones
Gold Member
I imagine he wants out of Man Utd but, I can't see what major team would want a train wreck like him in the dressing room and pay what United are paying. His agent needs to pull the finger out and get him to focus so people see a professional. Some wasted talent. Is he still up until 3am playing FIFA?
thicc_girls_are_teh_best
Gold Member
No idea. I was a kid back then and did not really follow the industry. But I remember reading here on Neogaf that Microsoft did all they could to interest them on the Xbox, like ending their own sport game(s?). Sega with the myriads of problems they had at the time probably burned too many bridges with them and with options elsewhere EA just abandonned them I think.
I'd say
SkylineRKR
and
S
SomeGit
more or less answered what happened. They mention the gist of it. EA wanted total privilege of sports games on Dreamcast but Sega already purchased Visual Concepts (should've been Lobotomy Software IMHO) and had plans to do sports games in-house. Now, we know that's probably because of how poorly things went with getting 3P to do sports games for the Saturn, going by remarks in the leaked Sega documents.And like Grit mentioned, EA had shares in 3DFX, who were a frontrunner for the Dreamcast tech until a court case happened and 3DFx leaked about Dreamcast in the case. Sega of Japan hated that, and kicked them to the curb, so EA was screwed in a way as well. No EA support for Dreamcast was a heavy blow in the West but I'm also kind of glad it happened as EA were clearly trying to take advantage of Sega the same way they did getting their special licensing deal on the Genesis/MegaDrive (after reverse-engineering that system to bypass the lockout and threatening to go to market with unlicensed games).
It somewhat humbled EA at the time I suppose...or it should've. We know what they actually wound up doing though (buying exclusivity to NFL license for Madden, basically killing the NFL 2K series outright).
EDIT:
SkylineRKR
didn't know about the specific terms of that deal involving other 3P sports games. EA were out of their minds by the late '90s. Definitely a bad period for them in terms of their business greed/sensibilities.This is probably why 7th-gen EA became so well-liked (at least for a time); they seemed humbled and started adding variety back to their lineup again (Dead Space, Mirror's Edge, etc.).
Last edited:
PaintTinJr
Member
I see this as the general theme from a lot of former PES players, my brother included, but the game continues to get better and still retain the origins.
Below is the last goal I bothered to capture from the last version of PES that you could buy, before Efootball became free to play.
If you watch the goal you should be able to see that with the exception of the manual lofted through ball, and maybe the defending inputs, much of the game from the PS2/GC (WE6FE) has been retained to let a player express themselves.
The striker that scores this goal is single footed, and only rated at 66/100, and is a weak striker, slow, no acceleration, no dribbling skills and poor stats for his good foot, like playing a stuart pearce as your striker, and yet here using the old mechanics, his uncontrolled knock-on and manual shooting lets him still score a decent goal without the defenders being able to get back at him, from the engine letting me express myself by knowing how each input would change the outcome.
PES only got, better. I'm still not fully won over by Efootball 2024 having probably put 40hrs into in the last two weeks(and spent zero money), but with the exception of manual lofted through balls and manual shooting with reticule like the PEs 2021 update, most of the game is still there, and is growing on me.
My feeling is too many people found the learning curve too hard or too much commitment to add skills with PES after PS2, my brother included, and I'm not talking about the skill moves from the R3 stick, which you can see in the video, I don't really use, and still play like I'm playing PS1 Evo.
Even eFootball is still an amazing footy experience today and much better than any PS2 version of PES IMO if you ignore it is a GaaS.
Last edited:
FF:Enhanced_Reality
Member
Funny, the way Microsoft tells it Sony made everything exclusive to stop other consoles having it. Ironic considering Sony also saved Square from bankruptcy and now they're releasing games on all platforms. Kinda makes you wonder if they're lying huh?
PaintTinJr
Member
You miss the point that they were only able to do that after cornering the market via the Fifa brand to have credibility to get those licenses. Anyone that could go interview any number of past football game dev companies in the UK around the ps1 to ps2 would tell you that even getting licenses for individual player endorsement became very expensive, and did little to sell games. David Beckham Soccer with Sony doing the first full body mo-cap of a player cost them millions IIRC and despite being a better game than Fifa at the time, couldn't compete.
Codemasters did club football back in the day, as probably the last real attempt by anyone to be a valid third option footy game, with clubs getting a direct cut of the copies branded for their team that got sold, and yet despite being far superior to Fifa at the time, and half way to being like PES, the game completely bombed.
PES is the only footy game that has ever survived on gameplay alone, beyond the early footy game market of many games with many cheap license endorsements, MotD, Emily Huge's, Olympic Soccer, etc or unlicensed, such as Kick off, Actua Soccer, Virtua Striker, Sensible soccer. PES only gets the options to buy licenses based on its longevity and would get access to far more on better terms if it was sold as an Official Fifa game for a few years.
IMO EA will only get to keep the licenses it has while it is the market leader in sales by a large margin. I would think those license will be upping their cut and looking at alternatives if EA's position lose even 1/3 of their market share with an official Fifa alternative in the market.
cartman414
Member
Funny, the way Microsoft tells it Sony made everything exclusive to stop other consoles having it. Ironic considering Sony also saved Square from bankruptcy and now they're releasing games on all platforms. Kinda makes you wonder if they're lying huh?
Sony has first dibs console-wise on new mainline FF. That's a mere distinction, though I can see why MS would want to split hairs.
Cristiano Hollando CH7
FF:Enhanced_Reality
Member
Of course it's just tit for tat. You pay for exclusive rights, we pay for exclusive publisher. Simple arrangement I'm sure. Though I imagine Microsoft will run out of publishers before Sony run out of franchises. Then again maybe not. There's less than ten major publishers in the world on consoles right now is there now?
I wonder if five key franchisees could really hold the future for Sony.
CamHostage
Member
I know people complain about FIFA, but... this was for the best ultimately, right?
I don't know anybody who has fond memories of Sony's This is Football/Soccer & World Tour Football/Soccer (...those haven't even been brought up in this thread before now. Granted, they were later in the SCE/989 Sports library.) Those games by SCE Soho were Sony Sports at its best making soccer, yet their best wasn't much to compete with EA or Konami.
And the Psygnosis/Shen Adidas Power Soccer games were I believe universally disliked. (I guess technically Sony did have the Adidas titles in its brands since the larger corporation did own Psygnosis, but that was the early days when Psygnosis was still sort of its own thing and the first game of the series was going to come ported to Saturn as well as PS.)
EA does what it does and I'm sure they would have found a way to have a footie franchise if Sony had taken the deal back then, so either way, we would have had an EA Sports Soccer game. And in the long run, there are reasons why Sony's only hand in sports is its baseball games.
I don't know anybody who has fond memories of Sony's This is Football/Soccer & World Tour Football/Soccer (...those haven't even been brought up in this thread before now. Granted, they were later in the SCE/989 Sports library.) Those games by SCE Soho were Sony Sports at its best making soccer, yet their best wasn't much to compete with EA or Konami.
And the Psygnosis/Shen Adidas Power Soccer games were I believe universally disliked. (I guess technically Sony did have the Adidas titles in its brands since the larger corporation did own Psygnosis, but that was the early days when Psygnosis was still sort of its own thing and the first game of the series was going to come ported to Saturn as well as PS.)
EA does what it does and I'm sure they would have found a way to have a footie franchise if Sony had taken the deal back then, so either way, we would have had an EA Sports Soccer game. And in the long run, there are reasons why Sony's only hand in sports is its baseball games.
Last edited:
SkylineRKR
Member
I'd say
And like Grit mentioned, EA had shares in 3DFX, who were a frontrunner for the Dreamcast tech until a court case happened and 3DFx leaked about Dreamcast in the case. Sega of Japan hated that, and kicked them to the curb, so EA was screwed in a way as well. No EA support for Dreamcast was a heavy blow in the West but I'm also kind of glad it happened as EA were clearly trying to take advantage of Sega the same way they did getting their special licensing deal on the Genesis/MegaDrive (after reverse-engineering that system to bypass the lockout and threatening to go to market with unlicensed games).
It somewhat humbled EA at the time I suppose...or it should've. We know what they actually wound up doing though (buying exclusivity to NFL license for Madden, basically killing the NFL 2K series outright).
EDIT:
This is probably why 7th-gen EA became so well-liked (at least for a time); they seemed humbled and started adding variety back to their lineup again (Dead Space, Mirror's Edge, etc.).
Its from the Stolar interview;
“[Former Electronic Arts CEO] Larry Probst is a dear friend of mine. Larry came to me and said, ‘Bernie, we’ll do Dreamcast games, but we want sports exclusivity.’ I said, ‘You want to be on the system with no other third-party sports games?’
“I looked at him and said, ‘You know what? I’ll do it, but there’s one caveat here: I just bought a company called Visual Concepts for $10 million, so you’ll have to compete with them.’ Larry says, ‘No, you can’t even put them on the system.’ I said ‘Then Larry, you and I are not going to be partners on this system.'” – Bernie Stolar, Ex-SEGA America President and CEO
If this is correct he even agreed with Probst, under the condition that EA did have to deal with a first party competitor.
As for VC, NBA 2k became a juggernaut and has the same monopoly FIFA has. If Sega would have them still, it might've been their biggest IP around. Though Sega would possibly fail to make it so big.
PaintTinJr
Member
From a technical point of view, EA's Fifa in 97 was way, way behind most dev studios producing full 3D football games, as it still played orthographic sprite based.. Even their World Cup France 98 is little more than a war of attrition of from sliding tackles followed by running from button hammering, pass or shoot, and this was no different even at the Japanese PS2 launch, as I remember a work colleague getting one imported with Fifa and it playing the exact same as it had for years, so the license was all that differentiated them for sales success at the time, and even looking back to their USA 94 sensible soccer clone on Snes showed that the license was doing all the heavy lifting for them, so I think more talented teams without the pressure of being different to get sales would have benefitted the wider footy game development far more than EA owning the license.
Majukun
Member
They can do it now if they want. Even if someone got the rights after ea left them, fifa is probably aiming for non-exclusivity at this point.
Generally speaking, with the fifa rights you really don't get THAT much, mainly the logo and World cup rights... And they had no know-how to make their own football game
Generally speaking, with the fifa rights you really don't get THAT much, mainly the logo and World cup rights... And they had no know-how to make their own football game
Sony had its own sport simulations line at the time (NFL GameDay was a serious treat to Madden in 1997 and 1998*) so certainly isn't the presence of sport simulations in the first-party lineup the real reason of the rift between EA and Sega.
Simply EA has a history of bullying who is weaker than them both to exclude rivals from really compete with their sport games (by splashing more money for the licenses) and to trying to pilot platform holder to decisions who favor them (by leveraging their status as the biggest third-party publisher on the planet).
Sega by that time was a very weak platfom holder and I'm sure EA management thought it woud be easy to wrestle control from them.
In case it back fired they were sure Sega wouldn't be a serious contender to Sony and Nintendo for which they would still continue to produce games for.
EA already took Sega by the balls with the infamous Joe Montana Football deal and by forcing a better license deal to develop for the Mega Drive:
Sega approached Electronic Arts, developer of the Madden NFL series, and president Trip Hawkins, for help, suggesting that he cancel the upcoming Genesis version of Madden in order to work on the game. Hawkins agreed to help Sega but refused to cancel his company's game instead working on both projects. He intentionally made Montana a worse game than Madden, starting with the basic code for the former he removed the 3D field as well as cut down the number of plays from 113 to 100. According to Michael Knox a programmer on the game, most of the deliberate downgrading occurred after the company had already completed the game. Joe Montana Football missed the Christmas deadline and was released in January 1991, shortly after the Genesis version of John Madden Football.
I'm pretty sure there is some kind of undercover beef between EA and Nintendo since the early 3DS/WiiU days, the difference is that EA has no chance to bully Nintendo which is stronger than them.
NSW sales in US are trending toward it becoming the second best selling cosole in US history yet no Madden game has appeared on it lol.
EDIT:
* Top 20 best selling games in US for each year between 1995 and 2000 (source: NPD):
First-party published titles highlighted.
Last edited:
