Electronic Arts might have another financial problem on their hands after UFC bought out Strikeforce today. UFC's exclusive deal with THQ lasting till 2018 could end up killing EA's promised MMA game sequel while giving THQ access to Strikeforce fighters for its next game.
EA's original plans were to put their new MMA series on an alternating schedule with Fight Night series to provide another yearly source of revenue for the company.
Even though THQ announced their UFC series is now on a 2 year schedule, it isn't expected that UFC will beak its current deal with THQ to fill in the non-THQ years. THQ would demand less payments on license fees and preference in the UFC brand in any new deal.
This news combined with horrible NBA Jam sales, potential end for the NBA Live/Elite series, and expected weak Madden 12 sales will ruin EA's revenue from its sports division.
http://kotaku.com/#!5781350/ufc-take...fter-one-round
----------------------------------------------
Microsoft testing out their network and Xbox Live with a new program called Xbox Labs until March 27. Any Xbox user can join the program and in return Microsoft is giving away free avatar goodies.
The tests are bandwidth intensive and the required stages are 30 minutes done in a row, 1 hour cumulative, and 6 hours cumulative without doing anything else on the system.