XBOX-HQ.COM - XSN to go AWOL

realmccloy writes: Microsoft's sports line takes a season off -
When gamers voted with their wallets last year, guess who took third place. You guessed it right. Behind first place EA's Madden NFL and second place ESPN NFL Football made by Sega easily outsold Microsoft's NFL Fever. To be exact, EA sold four times as many copies of Sega's game and six times as many as Microsofts. NHL Rivals and NBA Inside Drive took even a worse beating, leading Microsoft to take an unusual step. It's annual sports games will skip 2004. All three franchises will get a complete retooling to emerge, hopefully, more competitive in 2005.

All three franchises are going forward with the same development teams - Microsoft isn't laying anyone off. In addition, the decision won't affect the rest of XSN sports lineup; Links, Top Spin, and Amped arent on annual schedules, so their fates will be decided at another time. Could this decision be an olive branch to get EA on Xbox Live? The gap between EA and Live is cash, not competition. EA's John Riccitiello has always maintained that EA wasn't interested in making money for someone else.

Microsoft collects subscription fees for it's online service, while third parties simply accept the benefits of Microsoft handling the online arrangements for them. Will a new Live Server Protocol, which gives third parties the freedom to maintain Xbox Live servers on their own solve this problem? Some including Visual Concepts boss Greg Thomas believe so. The EA camp is still in denial when asked if Xbox Live will be featured on Madden. As of early April they state there is no plans to add Xbox Live support. According to EA, adding this support to NCAA 2005 would be impossible. Adding it to Madden would be almost as difficult. EA's sweet deal with SONY is about to run out this June, and if EA was to make any big announcements regarding Xbox Live support, it probably would have happened at the recent expo.

As for XSN itself, it's features currently grace RalliSport Challenge 2 which is out now. Otherwise, you will not see it on Live until 2005

Source: XBN Magazine