Microsoft Reveals Xbox 360 Soccer Exclusivity


Recommended Posts

Microsoft Reveals Xbox 360 Soccer Exclusivity

At its press event at the Leipzig game conference, Microsoft did not debut any major new titles for the Xbox 360, but did nonetheless make the unexpected announcement that both Electronic Arts? FIFA 07 and Konami?s Pro Evolution Soccer 6 would be next generation console exclusives to Microsoft for twelve months.

This appears to imply that there will be no PlayStation 3 version of either franchise until late 2007, with the company commenting that this made "the exclusive home to next-generation soccer this holiday season," a major boon to Microsoft in the soccer-mad territory.

The company also confirmed the specific bundle deals and release dates for the Xbox Live Vision camera, for which consumers can chat via video, send photo messages, put their own face in a game, and customize their gamertag for the benefit of their friends on the Xbox Live network.

The camera will be available in the U.S. on Sept. 19 and in Europe on Oct. 6 in two packages, firstly the standard Xbox Live Vision packag, featuring the camera, one-month Xbox Live Gold Membership, Xbox 360 Headset, and free downloads of Uno and TotemBall for $39.99 U.S./ euro 49.99. Secondly, the Xbox Live Video Chat Gold Kit includes a camera, a 12-month Xbox Live Gold Membership, an Xbox 360 Headset, free downloads of Uno, TotemBall, and Robotron, and 200 Microsoft Points for $79.99 U.S./ euro 89.99.

Officials also announced that the Xbox 360 would be launched in Eastern European countries such as a Poland, Hungry, The Czech Republic and Slovakia from November 3rd, 2006, further expanding the console's global reach.

Microsoft additionally followed up on a partnership with ten major universities to place the XNA development platform in the curriculum, the European part of a U.S. announcement already made during the company's GameFest last week. Five of these universities will be in Europe, with Hull, Nottingham and Bradford in the UK and Karlsruhe and Munich in Germany.

Finally, one other minor announcement in the company's relatively uneventful Leipzig press conference was the revelation that classic German board games Settlers of Catan, Carcassonne and Alhambra are to debut on Xbox Live Arcade in the near future.

souricon.gif News source: Gamasutra

Hmm, I wonder why this is. I wasn't planning on getting a 360, but if Pro Evo is always going to be exclusively on the 360 I will have to move to them instead. I won't be getting a new console for at least a year anyway, but this is a major blow for Sony if gamers know that Pro Evo won't be coming to their console straight away.

Ah well, the PS3 is backwards compatible, so I'll just play Pro evo 5 till then :p

Ah. No. You misunderstand. PES6 is coming to all the current-gen consoles, along with FIFA 07, but they are next-gen exclusives.

It is indeed a very surprising move, nontheless. Could MS dollars have had a hand in this, or was it a developer's choice... :shifty:

EDIT: Wait, 12 months exclusive?! Does that mean that us 360-ers will be loving FIFA 08, while PS3 has just discovered 07?

Ah. No. You misunderstand. PES6 is coming to all the current-gen consoles, along with FIFA 07, but they are next-gen exclusives.

It is indeed a very surprising move, nontheless. Could MS dollars have had a hand in this, or was it a developer's choice... :shifty:

EDIT: Wait, 12 months exclusive?! Does that mean that us 360-ers will be loving FIFA 08, while PS3 has just discovered 07?

Well PES6 it is then :p

I think they'll be just skipping PES7 / FIFA07 for the PS3... they'll just move along.

EDIT: Wait, 12 months exclusive?! Does that mean that us 360-ers will be loving FIFA 08, while PS3 has just discovered 07?

No it means PES7 and FIFA08 will be on both PS3 and Xbox 360.

This is pretty annoying, but since the PS3 is backwards compatible I'll can make do with the PS2 versions.

And the one I'm more interested in, PES6, according to Eurogamer, is just a prettier version of the PS2 game. Next year they should have re-worked the engine for PS3 and Xbox 360 (much like EA has done for FIFA07 on Xbox 360).

And anyway, both games are released across all the other platforms before PS3 is released, so no one is going to notice really.

EDIT: Wait, 12 months exclusive?! Does that mean that us 360-ers will be loving FIFA 08, while PS3 has just discovered 07?

Probably not, as Keito said. PS3 'should' have FIFA08, and skip 07. I am somewhat disappointed that the PS3 won't have either franchise - but then again, I don't want a PS3 until FFXIII launches, and that's rumoured to be late 2007, coinciding with this 'one-year contract' Microsoft has with EA and Konami.

EA says a lot of push-posh :laugh:

That's true :rofl: But like I said above, Konami has promised an optimised PES/WE next year for PS3 (and Xbox 360). This year they've just improved the graphics (and even then, they've gone overboard...the players look like wax models according to eurogamer). So PES7 is what I'm actually looking forward to.

That's true :rofl: But like I said above, Konami has promised an optimised PES/WE next year for PS3 (and Xbox 360). This year they've just improved the graphics (and even then, they've gone overboard...the players look like wax models according to eurogamer). So PES7 is what I'm actually looking forward to.

I don't really listen to EuroGamer, after they said in '04 that MS's showing was poor. '04 being the year they showed the first level of Halo 2.

OMGWTF!?

This topic is now closed to further replies.
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
  • Posts

    • TeraCopy 4.0 Build 27 is out.
    • My ice blue precision 3550 laptop
    • A coalition of publishers sued OpenAI and Microsoft over scraping content without consent by Hamid Ganji Image via Depositphotos.com AI companies often rely on readily available internet content to train their chatbots and provide users with instant answers. This method of AI training is fast and relatively inexpensive, but using a website’s content without permission or compensation is not something publishers like to see, and this is exactly why Microsoft and OpenAI are now being sued. As reported by Bloomberg, a group of publishers that collectively own nearly 400 newspapers has filed a lawsuit against OpenAI and Microsoft. The coalition argues that the two companies scraped their content to build AI chatbots like ChatGPT and Copilot without paying any compensation. The complaint, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, argues that while AI products have generated billions of dollars in market value using publishers’ work, none of that value has been shared with the publishers. The plaintiffs are seeking statutory damages and injunctive relief for alleged copyright infringement and violations of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. “Defendants systematically and secretly crawled the Publishers’ websites—including content behind paywalls and other access restrictions—and copied the Publishers’ articles, stories, and other original works onto their own servers without authorization,” the complaint states. The publishers also described the AI boom as a “death knell for local journalism” if AI companies that scrape content for free are not held accountable. Former New Jersey Attorney General Matthew Platkin and his law firm, Platkin LLP, are representing the publishers. “Our models empower innovation, are trained on publicly available data, and are grounded in fair use,” OpenAI spokesperson Drew Pusateri told Bloomberg. This is not the first lawsuit involving the unauthorized use of publishers’ content by AI firms, but it is one of the largest coalitions ever formed against the free use of content by AI chatbots. In 2024, OpenAI and Microsoft also faced a similar lawsuit from eight newspapers that claimed AI products were benefiting from their content without permission.
  • Recent Achievements

    • First Post
      kinowa earned a badge
      First Post
    • Rookie
      krychek57 went up a rank
      Rookie
    • Grand Master
      Jaybonaut went up a rank
      Grand Master
    • One Year In
      Philsl earned a badge
      One Year In
    • Dedicated
      Scoobystu earned a badge
      Dedicated
  • Popular Contributors

    1. 1
      +primortal
      443
    2. 2
      +Edouard
      172
    3. 3
      PsYcHoKiLLa
      134
    4. 4
      Michael Scrip
      78
    5. 5
      Xenon
      77
  • Tell a friend

    Love Neowin? Tell a friend!