EA Games Europe's Patrick Soderlund oversees studios like DICE and Criterion, plus the freshly announced sim racer Need For Speed: Shift, and talks to Gamasutra about EA's new biz experiments.
EA has announced that Need for Speed Carbon, Need for Speed Undercover, Need for Speed Shift, Need for Speed Shift 2: Unleashed, and Need for Speed The Run will be removed from digital storefronts beginning today, May 31.
From a preservation standpoint, this is the one thing I hate about digital games. And things will get much worse if game streaming becomes the norm.
The games are already preserved. Hence their existence on the digital stores to begin with. This is no different than when Disney put movies in the vault, only to bring them back years later.
Not true. Mass Effect re-release trilogy did not have some of the DLC content specifically because the contractor that played a major role in it's development did not preserve it, nor did Bioware.
Any idea of when marvel vs capcom 2 is coming back? That's my favorite game of all time and I can't use it on my ps3 as the file is corrupt and can't find an official dualshock or sixaxis to rebuild the database in safe mode. It's really frustrating that I can't use something I paid for that I expected to have forever.
At least it is available digitally. They give you a warning, and if you purchase it, then you will still always have access to it. They will also make it available again one day when it makes sense, but right now I imagine that <100 a day play these games.
Good luck buying Need for Speed: Carbon brand new from a store.
All games have a shelf life. These games are three generations old and had massive circulation. I don't think it is EAs problem if you haven't picked them up by now.
Why defend EA's bad business practice? There's no way to spin this, it's just bad.
NFS Undercover, Carbon,Prostreets, Rivals, 2015 Reboot, Payback , 2012 Mostwanted was no good, far as I'm concerned they can remove Heat too . it doesn't matter anymore if Ea remove them they "All" crap.
Ea went down hill after Blackbox studio left.
Ghost did not improved NFS , Criterion did nothing better and here they are back to screw NFS again. 2022 will be another flop as the first title they made (Burnout for Speed)
Not a fan of those games either, but I think you miss the point: even if someone—for whatever reason—wants to buy those games digitally, they can't. And the transition toward digital platforms makes the issue that much worse. Nevermind buying physical at outrageous prices from online sellers, you literally can't play them if you have an all-digital device.
Kombatologist is exactly right: it is an issue from the perspective of preservation that is likely to get worse with the rise of streaming.
Ah, no. I did Not missed the point. I spoke my personal opinion on those craptastic titles.
Why would anyone in there right mind but those title's Digitally??.......there is a website you can still buy those games around 19.99 I bought the Ratchet and Clank Trilogy PS3 for 19.99 Amazon and EBay price 79.99 wish I remember the name of the site.
I own some of these games does that mean I can no longer download them? Or just purchase?
Paul writes: "Without further ado, here is my list of the best and worst Need For Speed games in the history of the world! I'll run worst to best, so if you want to know which is the best ever Need for Speed game, you’ll have to read on."
Most wanted 2012 imo was awful, on PS3 the graphics are dreadful, and the crash cam was very annoying. Rival is the worst imo, hated that game. My favourite is Hot Pursuit, great game. Also Shift 1&2 are really good.
High Stakes will always be my favorite. Great cars, great music, and you could see through the windows which was pretty mind-blowing at the time. Best of all it was ricer-free.
Lame. The list doesn't even include any of the originals. NFS 1 and NFS hot Pursuit 1998. Must be a youngster who created the list.
He clearly stated that being this was an Xbox centered site he was going to limit his list to games that released on some form of Xbox. He also stated he had been playing them since OG PLaystation, so pretty sure he's not a "youngster"
From my personal experience NFS I personally don't like.......
The Worst : Underground 2 , Carbon, Prostreets, Undercover, Porche unleashed, Nitro, NFS World, 2012 Mostwanted, Rivals, 2015 Reboot last but not least Paycrap.
Best NFS I personally like :
All ps1 NFS : HighStakes (the best) including NFS 3 Hotpursuit , ps2 Hotpursuit 2 (Excellent game ) ..Underground ( Best so far)
2005 Mostwanted ( Excellent game) Shift 1/2 (Spectacular) remind me of GT , 2010 Hotpursuit Great game but race Waaaaaaay to long in my personal opinion . Last but not least The Run . these are my favorite NFS titles .
After The Run in my personal opinion NFS went down hill fast with Open world mapping crap, always online, multiplayer crap, alldrive, drifting in every freaking corners, no gripping anymore,autolog. None of this crapfest is NFS original formula. until Ea contract Ghost Games to return the original formula back in NFS it will always be Shitty game.
Hardcore Gamer: For the price of a pizza, you can get ProStreet, Shift 1, Shift 2, and Undercover.
A very good interview. In addition to the information about the new Need for Speed: Shift, it was really interesting, and encouraging to see that EA are really happy with the result of releasing Burnout Paradise as a full-game digital download on the PlayStation Store. It's good to see that this proved to be another successful way to get the game into as many people's collections as possible.