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[shanafan]

QUOTE

The company now plans to focus on reviving the XSN range in 2005, effectively missing out a full year's worth of annual updates, with the only XSN game still on the schedules for this year being the externally developed RalliSport Challenge 2. Although the Xbox also has third party sports titles from EA Sports and Sega's ESPN franchise in its line-up, the XSN Sports games were MS's attempt to give the console a cutting-edge range of online sports titles on Xbox Live. Launched with a fanfare at E3 last year, the decision to hold back the entire range is a somewhat embarrassing - although brave - admission of quality problems for MS. We actually did think we had good games last year, but the market and the direct feedback that we have shows us that we fall short in a couple of areas to our competition, admitted XSN Sports studio manager Kevin Browne, speaking to US website IGN. We think it's the best thing we can do, to take this year off, and to close that quality gap that we have in respect to the EA Sports and ESPN sports titles. Conspiracy theorists have of course been quick to point out that the launch of XSN Sports was at least partially motivated by Electronic Arts' decision not to support Xbox Live in its products, and that as such, the XSN titles would be a contentious point in MS's ongoing negotiations with EA on this topic. However, Browne was adamant that none of the XSN games have been cancelled permanently, and he told IGN that the decision to move the titles off this year's schedule was driven purely by quality issues, not by any politicking surrounding the EA issue. We don't want to go out there and ask customers to spend money for something that we are not convinced is absolutely the best that we think we can make, he explained. Browne also revealed that the studio was ending its relationship with one of the developers which had worked on previous XSN Sports titles, High Voltage Software, in favour of a developer closer to home. High Voltage was one of the companies which created a video demonstration of next-generation software for MS's XNA development platform announcement at GDC last week.

That's just great. Titles like..

Inside Drive 2005
Amped 3
NFL Fever 2005

Among others won't be coming out this year. I LOVE the Inside Drive series.. but now I have to play some arcade-like Live or ESPN edition, rather then the old-school simulation feel of Inside Drive..

That really does suck  

[shanafan]

Now that I think about this.. maybe EA wanted MS to do this, in order for EA Sports 2005 titles to be on Live  

[shanafan]

Amped 1 came out in 2002, and Amped 2 came out in 2003.. wouldn't that make it a yearly series?

[Master-Chief]

Dude, have you given the other sports games a chance? They are pretty sweet!  

[HSDEMONZ]

this is shocking.

MS admits directly or indriectly they have problems.. and secondly.. that they'd be willing to skip on the revenue from those titles.

Definitely shocking. A bold move.

I honeslty don't see any of the problem being worth holding the titles back for a whole year.

This plain sucks.. XBOX has 1-2 shelf years left.. and MS is fucking us on one of them.

Well.. MS loss is EA's gain.

As long as we have sopme decent sports games...

[IndieSnob]

I must say I don't like most of their sports franchises, especially the nba,nhl,mlb, and nfl games, but rallysport, links, and top-spin were very well done games, especially with the league play added in. Also I was hoping to see a version of High Heat next year, especially with online play, but I guess not now. Here's to hoping that EA's MVP can iron out the dynasty bugs from this year and have it online for xbox next year.

[shanafan]

Q and A about this news from IGN

http://sports.ign.co...2/502713p1.html

[shavedrat]

Hmm, doesnt feel like I've had the console that long, and it's already going down the pooper. Yay.  

[pita0017]

ESPN NFL2K5 will be on Live......check it out:

http://sports.ign.co...4/504591p1.html

yay for Sega.....hopefully EA will get in on the act. About damn time.

[darylzero]

I think this will facilitate EA moving to XBOX LIVE along with this excerpt taken from a Q&A regarding ESPN NFL 2k4 from Sega.

MS is now giving external server support to third party developers, so the next ESPN Football will basically be XSN enabled - just on SEGA's servers.


IGN Sports: One of EA's big hang-ups about going on Xbox Live was the fact that they wanted control of their own servers. Do you think LSP now opens the door for EA Sports to be online by the end of the year?

Greg Thomas: I've read different reports where they wanted control of their own content, but they also didn't fell that it was fair for MS to charge. I think they're wrong about that. I think that the Xbox Live service is really impressive in what they've done and by the number of paid subscribers that they have, that really proves it. I think LSP does open it up, though, because it allows you to use your own servers. So if that was EA's problem, then they can definitely be on Xbox Live this year. But if they had a different problem, a billing issue or a revenue concern, then that hasn't changed. If you read every one of their game reviews, they're making a huge mistake by not being on Xbox Live, and that gives people opportunities. But at this point, we're clearly expecting them to be on Xbox Live by the end of the year.