Electronic Arts wants to be the leader in the first-person shooter market. They talked big about last year's Medal of Honor reboot, but that game failed to deliver on those promises. It gave us a lack luster campaign and multiplayer that was a combination of Call of Duty and Battlefield, yet wasn't as good as either of those franchises.
This year EA will take another shot at the crown with two new FPS games set to hit the market in the next few months: Crysis 2 and Bulletstorm. Those two games will lead up to what EA CEO John Riccitiello call a very exciting FPS they have yet to reveal.
Speaking during an investors call, Riccitiello discussed the improvements EA has made in the FPS shooter genre over the last few years. During that discussion Riccitiello revealed that EA's entries into the FPS category this year will not end with Crysis 2 or Bulletstorm, and that they still have an "exciting" entry yet to be revealed:
"I don't want to give away the thunder from our call but for quite a long time now, I've been saying that it's our long-term goal to take back the first-person shooter category leadership. We made strong progress in calendar '10 over calendar '09. This year, with the trail end of Battlefield Bad Company 2 still doing well, Medal of Honor doing well, Crysis and Bulletstorm, we're clearly going to make more progress on our goal, and that's before we get to what I think is going to be a very exciting entry later in the year that we're not yet announcing."
We don't know anything about this upcoming game besides the fact that it exists. Could we be seeing the return of an old EA franchise, or a brand new IP? Does EA have any franchises that would fit in a FPS game that we haven't seen released on this generation of consoles? Or is he just taking about something as unexciting as a new and improved Medal of Honor sequel? Hopefully, we will get to know more information about this game in the coming months or at E3. Whatever it is, it will have to be something special if EA hope to take the FPS sales crown from Activision.
With Call of Duty selling millions of copies and Microsoft's Halo: Reach not very far behind, EA has a long road in front of them. The first Black Ops map pack, First Stike, recently arrived for Xbox 360 owners. Could that DLC possibly affect the sales of Bulletstorm, which is scheduled for release at the end of the month? The Bulletstorm demo that came out a few weeks ago has some people eager to get their hands on it, while others fear it could be lacking content and be nothing more that a weekend rental. Also, will Crysis 2 have an audience on consoles when the series is associated with high end PCs? There are a lot of hurdles for EA to navigate before they become number one on the FPS genre.
Also during this investment call, there were some questions directed at the EA executives regarding their preparations for the Nintendo 3DS launch. While choosing not to get very in depth about their 3DS strategy, EA's John Schappert did discuss that they are currently preparing three titles for Nintendo's new handheld:
"We have previously announced three titles for the 3DS: Madden, FIFA and The Sims. We expect to have two of those out on launch day and the other to follow obviously on the calendar year. So that's as much as we're providing right now for our 3DS strategy. But we do expect to have two of those out on launch day."
Schappert did not say which of those three titles would be the launch games, but Amazon currently has Madden and The Sims listed with March 22nd release dates. Based on the popularity of those two franchises, and if they are available at launch with only a few other games to choose from, they could end up being huge sellers for EA.
So readers, what do you want from EA's new FPS? Want a return of an old IP or something brand new? On the handheld side of things, does Madden or the Sims sound like interesting launch titles for the 3DS?
Source: Seeking Alpha