A good article on this is on Businesswire.

But in rough summary, EA games has bought BioWare and Pandemic Studios for 810 million dollars, 620 million for the stocks of VG Holding, the owner and investor of both companies, 155 million for select employees of the companies, and EA is loaning another 35 million for VG Holding until the deal is finished, which is predicted as January 2008.

What the article failed to mention was the past history of EA acquisitions: Origin, Westwood Studios, and Bullfrog. Origin produced the name brand series of Ultima. Westwood Studios produced the Eye of the Beholder series, Lands of Lore series, Dune II, The Legend of Kyrandia series, and most notably the Command and Conquer series. Bullfrog produced the game series Populu and Magic Carpet. What ever happened to these companies, well they were all bought by EA games, for the licensing rights, and then EA producer subpar game after game under the series titles until either the budgeting for the companies was consolidated with their region teams (Bullfrog and EA UK division) or EA closed down the division entirely claiming the divisions became unprofitable (Origin and Westwood Studios).EA does this same strategy for their own original titles: Need for Speed, and, potentially, Burnout.

In many ways it is very predictable what the future holds for BioWare and Pandemic Studios. As those who read my other articles, particularly, the one below about Sony and Square-Enix, already knows my position towards monopolies, but granted I would gladly take the Square-Enix monopoly over the EA monopoly any day. Square-Enix, at least, believes in the quality of their games, while EA is a purely money driven corporation.

Let us take a moment to contemplate on the Tree of Woe, as to what made BioWare and Pandemic Studios great. BioWare, a Canadian company, was started in February 1995; they produced several games including Baldur's Gate and Neverwinter Nights. Pandemic Studios was formed by former Activision employees in 1998, and produced Star Wars Battlefront in 2004. The companies were both bought by VG Holding, in November 2005, and given 300 million dollars for investment. However, what made this merger successful was that the companies maintained separate, as far as divisions, employees, etc. and given the funding and freedom to make successful high-quality games.

If only EA understood this, unfortunately, it seems as if the companies will not maintain their freedom, and like likely fall to the far side, like its predecessors.

-Lucavi_Kalera

Few know of the existence of Sega CD, much less know of the contributions it made in the gaming world. Sega CD was developed as an attachment to the Sega Genesis, allowing more games, of higher quality, to the owners of Sega Genesis, at a lower price than the typical investment of a new system. It relied on many of the preexisting components of the Genesis to work and allowed new functions, and aimed to fix some of the problems Genesis had like graphics and sound quality, and storage capability.

However, this system was ultimately doomed for numerous causes, most were because of the Genesis existing limitations. Since it relied on the Genesis abilities it was unable to produce graphics quality that it was capable of. It held the same processing capabilities as the N64, but it achieved this hallmark five years before the N64 was released. Also the major complaint of the Genesis controller, also led to limitations on the system, giving the games only limited number of user controlled functions. Other problems were involved in advertising, the campaign focused on better graphics and game selection, both points which turned the exact faults of the system. While, they did achieve better graphics it was not as superior as suggested, and with few exclusive titles and too many Genesis game remakes without any new game-play, players crucified the system. And the Sega CD failed to cover the largest problem of the Genesis system, no saving features.

The advertising campaign ignored the selling points of the system, the great sound quality and the storage capability, both of which surpassed the N64. And both of which were the result of the switch from cartridges to CDs.

Sega CD resulted, directly, in two major events. One, among the few exclusive titles Sega CD had, was the creation of the Lunar RPG series, which sequels were made on the systems that followed its death. However, most significant event Sega CD was directly involved in was the creation of the ESRB system, yup the gaming rating system. For one of their other exclusive titles was Night Trap, was also innovative in its ideas. The concept of the game was that you were the bodyguard of a house of young girls at slumber party, who were apparently female vampires? This game became controversial because of the girls in the game, was a celebrity turned softcore porn actress in real life, and the in the game there were some scenes which girls could be seen in skimpy clothing, leading to a dispute much like Hot Coffee issue of Grand Theft Auto. This led to the development of the ESRB system, also partially due to Mortal Kombat violent nature.

However, the revolution in which I am referring, was not due to the direct contributes of the system. It lies in the theoretical concept of the system. Sega CD was designed to the first system with backwards compatibility, while it did not achieve this in the software sense, it did the hardware sense, by relying the Genesis help it work, it allowed gamers to invest in the new games, without the tedious normal new system problems: purchasing new controllers, and other equipment and also how older games become instantly obsolete. While Sega CD was a failure as a system, its concept lived on into Playstation 2, revolutionizing the entire market as it was known.

-Lucavi_Zalera

As we all know, Square-Enix is a powerful player when it comes to the RPG realm. In fact, think about it, how many other good tradition RPGs have you seen recently on the Playstation platform, none really. In the past few years only Bandai, Konmai, and Midway have tried to, with Dot Hack, Suidoken and Shadow Hearts series. Yet both Midway and Konmai have avoided mainstream games, Shadow Hearts is a intensely Gothic game, and Suidoken is a cult game. So that leaves only poor Bandai, they tried advertise intensively while the made their games, or do I need to remind you? The Dot Hack series consists of 8 video games, 3 television series, 2 movies, 4 book series, 2 independent books, a trading card game, and a comic strip. And the highest rating any of the games got was a ... 7. Other gaming publishers went with the sub-genre of strategy RPGs, yet even there Square-Enix has already surpassed them all with Final Fantasy Tactics, making their only blessing was Square-Enix's decision not to remake it on the PS2.

Sony, realizing this was going on, goes back and revived their own RPG series, Wild Arms. (Yes, I do realize that this happened about a year and a half ago, but it's still an ongoing problem.) Hoping that their fan base, and loads of money could develop a game that would give Square-Enix competition, but well they failed. They were apparently rusty and could not develop a competitive game.

Now, many of you may wonder, who cares if Square-Enix is dominate, they make awesome games. Well, I do agree with you, just take a look a the games I own and see how more are Square-Enix titles, but remember Unlimited Saga, or Radita Stories. There is a reason why we have anti-trust laws, in a competitive market the firms tries to obtain more sales through lower prices or better goods, so the consumer (you) wins.

-Lucavi_Zalera

Both Sony and Nintendo are currently losing ground to Microsoft; Sony for its lack of exclusive titles and icon characters, and Nintendo for lack of third party titles and weird technological choices.

As most of you are aware Nintendo has been in decline for years, since when they choose to remain with cartridges on the N64, and has been unable to reverse that loss since. So, unless the Wii is extremely successful and Nintendo changes their policy towards third party publishers, which is doubtful because of Nintendo's management incompetence, it will follow the path Sega had laid before them. Even if Sony and Nintendo form an exclusive contract, like Sega did with Nintendo, Nintendo will be unable to produce games quick enough in order Sony to gain its lost ground back. While Nintendo will continue becoming like Sega and decline into a minor publisher. While Sony takes on Nintendo's role, as the minor player, and leaving Microsoft king.

In Sony's case, they have been in decline since the drawback dates of PS3. It is surprising that Sony would make this mistake; because Sony knows the edge that they received releasing PS2 a year ahead of XBox or Gamecube, so why would they allow themselves to fall so grossly behind, and then put a price tag of $499, and $599 on their system. Since in this age everyone knows it the software that drives sells, hence how Microsoft boomed, and even in different industries a similar concept is being utilized in the printer and printer ink industry. And with Sony not releasing any strong launch titles sales became sluggish. Sony executed themselves with their execution of the PS3 launch.

So in order for both companies to thrive, Sony needs to buy Nintendo, not a merger, and not Nintendo buying Sony. Nintendo management team has proved over the decade its extreme incompetence and needs to be disposed of; the only reason why Nintendo has survived is because of the quality of their game designers and consumer loyalty. So with Sony owning the rights to Nintendo's primer titles it will resolve Playstation's notorious problems. And Sony would sell off Nintendo's hardware division for a pretty penny, which would recoup some of the losses from their PS3 launch mistake. Sony would keep the Nintendo name, because of name-brand recognition.

-Lucavi_Zalera

As everyone know the initial selling price of the Next-Gen systems had a remarkable increase price. Take for example the X-Box vs X-Box 360, the starting price had a 67% price raise. While the PS3 had a 100% price increase. While all the games had a 20% price increase. The question on my mind is, taking from the recent iphone example, was this price gouging from the firms? Can we expect large reductions in the system's cost, as we here constantly of the price cuts done in Japan? If the manufacturers plan to keep the current price level will this drive away loyalist consumers? And if that is the case, what of the exclusive game console manufactures, will they accept the drop in revenues?

In my opinion these next-gen systems aren't worth it, I plan on taking my business to the computer gaming market. The current technology exceeds these gaming consoles and the transition in technology is more continuous, so I don't have to suddenly drop $800 in gaming equipment. I could buy a gaming computer system with that much money, as long as I build it myself, in fact that is exactly what I am doing.

-Lucavi_Zalera