EA to own 20% of Ubi Soft

[Michael Bluth]

REDWOOD CITY, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Dec. 20, 2004--Electronic Arts (Nasdaq:ERTS) today announced an investment in international game developer and publisher UbiSoft Entertainment, headquartered in Rennes, France. The investment represents approximately 19.9 percent interest in the company -- shares purchased as a block from Talpa Beheer B.V. to be completed upon obtaining antitrust clearance from the U.S. government. Financial terms were not disclosed.


About Electronic Arts

Electronic Arts Inc. (EA), headquartered in Redwood City, California, is the world's leading interactive entertainment software company. Founded in 1982, EA posted revenues of $2.96 billion for fiscal 2004. The company develops, publishes, and distributes interactive software worldwide for video game systems, personal computers and the Internet. In 2003, EA had 27 titles that sold more than one million copies. Electronic Arts markets its products under three brand names: EA SPORTS(TM), EA GAMES(TM) and EA SPORTS BIG(TM). EA's homepage and online game site is www.ea.com. More information about EA's products and full text of press releases can be found on the Internet at http://info.ea.com.



http://home.businesswire.com/portal/site/home/index.jsp?epi-content=GENERIC&newsId=20041219000012&ndmHsc=v2*A1100955600000*B1103587997000*DgroupByDa te*J2*L1*N1000837*ZERTS&newsLang=en&beanID=202776713&viewID=news_view



Yikes.

[alpha]

O noes! Next they will buy Nintendo!

[Ravster]

The will never buy Nintendo, nor will they think about it, hahah1h1

Who is Michael Bluth, and where has he been lately?

[dementia]

see avatar.

The fucking Walmart of gaming I tell you.

[koten]

GODDAMN EA! There is no way in hell they can take Ubi. They have been making excelent games as of late and if EA takes them they'll go down hill and an instant.

[X2_revolution]

EA takes one more step towards having a complete monopoly on the industry.

[Nights]

The basically have a monoply on the sports category... (I can't wait tell the get sued)(

[Kliq]

As Gamecube owners, we should be happy. I mean, fuck ESPN Sports. They gave Gamecube owners the shaft. EA aquiring the rights to the NFL license doesn't hurt us in any way, if anything its like sweet revenge to Sega.

As long as EA keeps making games that I enjoy, I don't really mind. They are becoming a monopoly and I hope things don't get too out of control, but I don't really have complaints against their games. It's not like they're putting out peice of shit software.

[orcus116]

EA is like the pop music of the video game industry.

[MCKingKongMushi]

As Gamecube owners, we should be happy. I mean, fuck ESPN Sports. They gave Gamecube owners the shaft. EA aquiring the rights to the NFL license doesn't hurt us in any way, if anything its like sweet revenge to Sega.

As long as EA keeps making games that I enjoy, I don't really mind. They are becoming a monopoly and I hope things don't get too out of control, but I don't really have complaints against their games. It's not like they're putting out peice of shit software.

Fuck ESPN Sports? You should blame Nintendo for having a horrible ad campaign, not Sega for being smart. Why would they bother making it for that system when they know for a fact it won't sell for shit, huh?

And yes, it does hurt you...now they have no reason to make their games better each year, as there is no competition.

FUCK YOU EA.

[Generic Wheaties]

It isn't EA's fault about this, the NFL approached them. They accepted.

[Michael Bluth]

It isn't EA's fault about this, the NFL approached them. They accepted.

Typical PR spin. Sega can (and will) still make a football game. It might be "ESPN Football", with a fantastic create-a-player/team/stadium options, it might be ESPN CFL Football or ESPN Arena Football or something like that.

And Kliq, so amusing. It's YOUR fault as Nintendo fans as to why Sega dropped sports on the Nintendo Capcom 5-style. It's why a lot of companies are doing that. A lot.

[OutlawAdidas]

wat ever

if they buy Ubisoft i will kill them. Ubisoft is very talented

but EA does do more Nintendo advertising

[Dwhitten]

I encourage everyone to stop buying EA games. This is ridiculous...

[Kliq]

I can never quite understand why people hate EA so much. I mean, when they do take over games (like Command and Conquer from Westwood) they actually end up making the game BETTER. Really, I haven't played many shitty EA Games.

And yes, fuck sega sports sadly. I love Sega Sports, its the only reason I am buying an XBOX (that and Halo2) but the way they gave us the shaft was horrible. Unlike EA sports, who actually TRIED to keep us happy, Sega just cut us off completely. They could of just shipped smaller quantities of Gamecube versions, but no. It was heart breaking.

Maybe when EA-Games become grabde-shit and they stop caring, I'll start boycotting. But until than, I'll continue to buy EA products.

IF they had bought the rights to the NBA, THAN i would have been uber-pissed.

[orcus116]

Where they fuck up royaly is their movie licensing. Someone really really really needs to take the Bond license away from them. They've butchered it beyond belief. They've also killed The Sims. I mean it was like they were forcing Maxis to do everything possible with the game to milk money and when they had enough code where they could've made just a patch for the game they package it up and make it cost $30.

This is just a personal thing but I hate hate hate hate HATE the way they make their cutscenes. The graphics are always blurry and production values are incredibly unpolished. And they couldn't make a good FPS to save their lives. I can just hardly ever have fun playing anything they've made. They've put the mediocracy staple in the video game industry and many of their games just come out rushed and boring.