EA condenses E3 press conference into handy announcement
After the break. Just for ease. The Rage signing's the biggest thing in there, without doubt. Read all the rest of our coverage from the EA conference here.
EA Unveils New Games, New Relationships and New Online Experiences at E3
E3 Media & Business Summit 2008
LOS ANGELES: Electronic Arts Inc. (NASDAQ:ERTS) today announced a powerful slate of new initiatives during a special media briefing before the start of the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3).
Among the announcements made today: The Sims™ introduced an all-new franchise with SimAnimals™, EA signed up with legendary development studio id Software to publish the studio’s next blockbuster franchise RAGE™, NBA LIVE 09 will tap into online real-time player information through Dynamic DNA, EA Online unveiled a new identity and micro-transaction system, BioWare™ revealed new details about its dark heroic fantasy epic Dragon Age™: Origins, and Maxis™ revealed that the Spore™ Creature Creator - launched last month - has allowed users to generate more creatures than there are documented species on planet earth.
“EA's 2008 lineup is our best ever," said EA CEO John Riccitiello. “Our franchises are the most innovative they’ve ever been and we announced the largest slate of brand new intellectual properties in our company’s history.”
SimAnimals
The Sims Label revealed the first details for its all-new franchise and original intellectual property SimAnimals, and established a whole new category of wild animal games. Made exclusively for the Wii™ and the Nintendo DS™, SimAnimals will be available worldwide in January 2009. In this game players are challenged to engage, touch, move and try to control a wide range of animals as they journey deeper and deeper into the forest. An on-screen animated hand allows players to reach out and touch, pick up and move everything in the game from foxes and bears to trees and flowers. Players cohabitate with these animals in their natural surroundings, and based on how they are treated, the animals will show love and affection – or dislike and aversion! Players will have fun developing relationships with wild animals and their families, and experiencing the humor and drama of surviving in the wilderness.
id Software
EA has signed an agreement to publish RAGE, the next blockbuster from id Software, the inventors of the first person shooter. Built on the id Tech5 engine, RAGE will be released on the PLAYSTATION®3 computer entertainment system, Xbox 360™ videogame and entertainment system from Microsoft, PC and Macintosh® computers. More information about RAGE will be available at QuakeCon 2008 in Dallas, Texas from July 31st to August 2nd. More information about QuakeCon is available at www.quakecon.org.
NBA LIVE 09
NBA LIVE 09 has rewritten the rules and fundamentally shifted the way you look at sports simulation games. Dynamic DNA emulates - with absolute precision - an NBA player in every sense of the word. Dynamic DNA then comes to life with daily online updates throughout the season via the NBA LIVE 365 feature. NBA LIVE 09 is now constantly evolving and authentically reflects what you see on the court in your virtual experience. Just like the real NBA game, players get injured, great players go cold and no-names breakthrough. If you’re a sports fan, this is a dream come true – NBA LIVE 09 is made fresh daily all season long. NBA LIVE 09 will ship on October 7, 2008 in North America with an MSRP of $59.99.
EA Online Initiatives
EA Online announced new features to make games easier to use and more fun to play, including a new identity system described in today’s press conference as “nucleus.” This identity system stores a gamer’s profile such as likes, dislikes, friends and achievements. The system carries a gamer’s identity everywhere they go - across games and platforms – so that the reputation a gamer establishes in their console can follow them regardless of what platform they play on – anywhere or anytime.
In addition, EA Online has built powerful backend tools that will make micro-transactions a bigger part of the gaming experience. For example, in the Battlefield Heroes™ store, gamers will be able to get new items such as weapons, maps and fatigues. The identity system is built into the new The Sims 2 Store, and will also be available in titles like Spore and across titles from EA SPORTS.
Complementing the capabilities of the online identity system, EA also unveiled new details about its recent acquisition of Three SF and its service called Rupture™. With Rupture, gamers will be able to track and challenge friends across all games and gaming platforms. Built around an entirely open, game-agnostic API, Rupture allows any game developer or gamer with some scripting knowledge to extend Rupture to support new games, game events, or statistics. More information about this can be found at www.rupture.com/developers.
Dragon Age: Origins
The spirit of a classic fantasy Role Playing Game comes of age as Dragon Age: Origins features an emotionally-driven narrative, lifelike digital actors and stunning visuals. New details were revealed today including a scalable combat system, powerful spells, deep levels of customization, and unique origin stories that change the course of every adventure.
Spore
Spore Creature Creator continues to gain momentum as new species come online almost every second of every day. More than 1.7 million creatures have been created since the June 17 launch with species ranging from walking fruit, giant dragons, amazing aliens and everything in between. There are now more creatures in Spore Creature Creator than there are documented species on planet earth. The Spore Creature Creator is rated E for Everyone by the ESRB. The downloadable demo version is available for free. The complete version has an MSRP of $9.99 in North America. Spore ships for PC, Mac®, Nintendo DS™ and mobile phones on September 5, 2008 in Europe and September 7, 2008 in North America and Asia. Visit www.Spore.com to download a free version of the Spore Creature Creator, sign up for the Spore newsletter or check out all-new screenshots and videos from the game.
About Electronic Arts
Electronic Arts Inc. (EA), headquartered in Redwood City, California, is the world's leading interactive entertainment software company. Founded in 1982, the Company develops, publishes, and distributes interactive software worldwide for video game systems, personal computers, cellular handsets and the Internet. Electronic Arts markets its products under four brand names: EA SPORTSTM, EATM, EA SPORTS FreestyleTM and POGOTM. In fiscal 2008, EA posted GAAP net revenue of $3.67 billion and had 27 titles that sold more than one million copies. 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.
EA, EA SPORTS, EA SPORTS Freestyle, POGO, The Sims, SimAnimals, Maxis, Spore and Rupture are trademarks or registered trademarks of Electronic Arts Inc. in the U.S and/or other countries. BioWare and Dragon Age are trademarks or registered trademarks owned by EA International (Studio and Publishing) Ltd. in the U.S. and/or other countries. Battlefield Heroes is a trademark or registered trademarks of EA Digital Illusions CE AB. RAGE is a trademark and/or registered trademark of id Software, Inc. NBA is a registered trademark of NBA Properties, Inc. Nintendo DS and Wii are trademarks of Nintendo. “PlayStation” and “PLAYSTATION” are registered trademarks of Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. Xbox and Xbox 360 are trademarks of the Microsoft group of companies. Macintosh and Mac are registered trademarks of Apple Computer, Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.
Safe Harbor For Forward-Looking Statements
This press release contains forward-looking statements regarding future events or the future financial performance of EA. Statements including words such as "anticipate", "believe", "estimate" or "expect" and statements in the future tense are forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual events or actual future results to differ materially from those set forth in the forward-looking statements. Please refer you to the Electronic Arts' latest Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2008 for a discussion of important factors that could cause actual events or actual results to differ materially from those described in this press release. These forward-looking statements speak only as of the initial date on which this press release was issued. Electronic Arts assumes no obligation to, and does not necessarily intend to, update these forward-looking statements.