More (no pun) EA / MS Hopping

[Dave Baumann]

This time a former EA exec gets a newly created position overseeing XBOX Live.

http://biz.gamedaily.com/industry/feature/?id=17085

Microsoft announced today that the company has appointed longtime Electronic Arts exec John Schappert to the newly created position of corporate vice president of Live, software and services. In this new role, Schappert will oversee Xbox Live (which has more than 7 million members across 25 countries) and he will also oversee related businesses such as Games for Windows – Live, XNA and Microsoft Casual Games, which includes over 400 games via MSN Games, Windows Live Messenger, Windows games and Xbox Live Arcade.

Curious to see if this results in some new directions for Live. MS evidently feel important enough to create a new role to be filled by Schappert.

 

[Mythos]

Interesting...

Possible extrapulation on my part... but being that there is this swap with exec. both with EA and MS. Inaddition to Madden football marketing on X360, getting the extras on the multiconsole end from EA, EA and MS ingame marketing deal, and then EA buys into 25% of ubisoft (being that ubisoft has good realtions with MS). Possible power play? Exclusive deals from the top two software firms?

 

[Todd33]

Interesting...

Possible extrapulation on my part... but being that there is this swap with exec. both with EA and MS. Inaddition to Madden football marketing on X360, getting the extras on the multiconsole end from EA, EA and MS ingame marketing deal, and then EA buys into 25% of ubisoft (being that ubisoft has good realtions with MS). Possible power play? Exclusive deals from the top two software firms?

Because EA has a advertising deal with a company MS bought and EA owns part of Ubi, now MS is getting exclusives from EA and Ubi? Wow, that's a stretch, this is like the Kevin Bacon game.

 

[Rangers]

I notice Xboxlive has been pimping Madden 08 on the dashboard. Not sure what that means. I dont know if companies pay for those ads or what.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

As I understand it, yes they do. The whole reason for those ad's is to make MS money!