After EA's Madden/NFL announcement, there was comments being made about EA possibly purchasing Sega's ESPN NFL (XBox version). The scenario would be Madden on PS2, Cube and PC platforms. ESPN would be on XBox-only.
Considering yesterday's announcement that EA purchased ESPN's exclusiveness for 15 years, I'm wondering if EA is thinking about doing the un-imagineable, purchasing Sega's XBox version. After all, there's value in doing this from a sales, marketing and strategy perspective:
* Brings Sega's users onboard (sales)
* Softens the licensing coup (marketing)
* Builds 'best of breed' opportunity for newer platforms to come (strategy)
* Allows EA to leverage Sega's programming code; especially in how ESPN's presentation is 'already' there. ESPN's presentation is very good
I think the risk would be worth the reward.
Hopeful
