This will be interesting to see, because it's not the FIFA game everyone who sees this press release is probably thinking about. EA didn't renew the FIFA license, so the game everyone plays is EAFC now. This will be a new game, and curious to see the quality.
I don't want anything to do with EA nor FIFA. How's Konami's eFootball these days for couch play? I don't give a rats about pay-to-win online. Can I mod it with real player/team names and run it on Linux?
If you don't want anything to do with EA, Konami ain't much better. They actively sabotage their former employees job prospects.
> One employee from a staffing agency said that Konami "files complaints to gaming companies who take on its former employees," causing one game company to "warn its staff against hiring ex-Kon" - "ex-Kon" being a nickname for ex-Konami employees. "If you leave the company, you cannot rely on Konami's name to land a job," one former employee said.
KONAMI's PES (Pro Evolution Soccer) - (or Winning Eleven as it was called originally), has always had better gameplay. What it suffered was lack of liseneces.
Now it is free and called eFootball... and obviously not that same, but PES has always been the favorite of fans gameplay wise.
I think the first EA fifa 97 was on sega mega drive 2 that I recall playing. It's amazing to see how far they came over the years but after 2014 I stopped caring about the all the new options as I was to old to learn all the new controls.
No, it started ~4 years ago when FIFA hiked the license cost for EA, and 2 years ago EA had enough & didn't renew the license.[1] Since then, EA basically rebranded their series to "EA Sports FC" and dropped the FIFA branding altogether. This didn't change much as they kept/renewed the licenses for players, teams, stadiums, etc.[2]
That naming deal renewal was one of the most bungled deals in history. FIFA wanted $1bn to renew for four years and to make it nonexclusive, EA told them to get fucked, now FIFA gets $0 and their name isn't even on the game.
No screenshots. Not even a title screen. No game videos, preliminary or otherwise. Barely a reference to what the genre is. Not a very good announcement for a game, from a strictly technical perspective.
Nor does the developer’s (or publisher/financier/co-developer?) website provide any additional details or information. In fact, as far as I know, it has not released any games yet (a 007 game is scheduled for 2026).
Nothing about how to play it either, on the press release or the linked page about Netflix games. Just "on selected TVs with your phone as a controller". Why do companies make it hard?
My phone is the controller? Fuck that. I assumed one could play Netflix with a Bluetooth controller of some sort, as with Apple Arcade. Is FIFA a one-off, or are all Netflix games controlled with your phone?
I think the FIFA brand name has enough weight among its target audience that they know what genre it is. The rest, well, it’s a sign that whoever’s running the marketing doesn’t understand the gaming audience and whoever’s in charge is either inattentive or unaware enough to let that go out and try to treat it more like the typical tech market, which hasn’t worked out well for stadia, Amazon, etc
It's not much of a game. You play as Gianni Infantino, you sit at a desk while representatives of oppressive regimes hand you envelopes of cash to help whitewash their country's human rights abuses.
Hmm, you've got the gift-giving (it is the season, after all) backwards. We all saw Gianni Infantino stand by the desk, while HE gave a gift (a tasteful gold trophy, not a grubby little envelope) to the aforementioned representative of the oppressive regime.
To, in your words, whitewash that country's human rights abuses ...
Curious that there are no images and no info about Delphi Interactive besides their Linkedin page. It won't be a FIFA competitor because of the compute limit of Netflix devices, but any more info would be great.
They are partnering with Delphi Interactive, which I hadn't heard of, though they are some partner with IO on the new 007 game.
> Delphi builds AAA games based on the most desirable IP franchises in the world. Delphi has pioneered a proven model to de-risk titles, reduce development costs, and create unprecedented alignment between IP owners, creatives, and developers.
I assume they are some kind of broker between IP and dev studios, though the PR implies they are developing it. The corporate slop tagline isn't encouraging but we'll see.
Nowadays, the shareholders just talk to each other in these press releases, knowing the customer can't do squat about it. You'll get de-risked, unprecedented alignment and you'll like it too!
It does feel like the customers are just the people whose pockets will be picked out of. Do marketing, people pay, they get nothing that was promised, plenty of complaints, company sends standard "We apologize if your expectations were not met, but get fucked.", profit!
And then people will still pay them because they have a monopoly. E.g. with Office^W Copilot 365, Windows, Facebook, etc.
> Delphi has pioneered a proven model to de-risk titles, reduce development costs, and create unprecedented alignment between IP owners, creatives, and developers.
Their model is already proven before they've delivered a single title, what a time to be alive.
I don't know about other HN readers but some of us wake up in the morning and can't wait to create unprecedented alignment between IP owners, creatives, and developers.
Honestly most gaming market entrants would do best to try and capitalize on the lowest common denominator of gamers, ball and gun gamers. They're by far the least likely to care where their games are played, just that the games are accessible with the lowest barrier to entry.
Most other genres of gamers either have their preferred platforms and are far less likely to migrate.
instead of Delphi Interactive, they should just partner with Konami and create this new game called Fifa. The PES gameplay + Fifa license would destroy EAFC any day.
> One employee from a staffing agency said that Konami "files complaints to gaming companies who take on its former employees," causing one game company to "warn its staff against hiring ex-Kon" - "ex-Kon" being a nickname for ex-Konami employees. "If you leave the company, you cannot rely on Konami's name to land a job," one former employee said.
https://www.gamesindustry.biz/konami-accused-of-blacklisting...
Now it is free and called eFootball... and obviously not that same, but PES has always been the favorite of fans gameplay wise.
I've gotten hundreds of hours of entertainment off FIFA and PES; never missed having any more features.
1:
https://twitter.com/syacvg/status/1706815482744238221
https://www.ea.com/en-gb/news/ea-sports-and-fifa-extend-lice...
2:
https://www.ea.com/news/ea-sports-fc
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FIFA_(video_game_series)
> it was announced that EA and FIFA's partnership of 30 years would come to an end upon the termination of their licensing agreement
> As a successor to the FIFA series, EA launched the EA Sports FC franchise, with EA Sports FC 24 being the first installment under the new name.
Up-to-date FIFA-branded games are not a thing currently, which is what they obviously meant.
<https://www.delphiinteractive.com>
EDIT: the delphi website stores all files on website-files.com which is owned by Webflow (a no-code website builder).
To, in your words, whitewash that country's human rights abuses ...
> Delphi builds AAA games based on the most desirable IP franchises in the world. Delphi has pioneered a proven model to de-risk titles, reduce development costs, and create unprecedented alignment between IP owners, creatives, and developers.
I assume they are some kind of broker between IP and dev studios, though the PR implies they are developing it. The corporate slop tagline isn't encouraging but we'll see.
And then people will still pay them because they have a monopoly. E.g. with Office^W Copilot 365, Windows, Facebook, etc.
Their model is already proven before they've delivered a single title, what a time to be alive.
I don't know about other HN readers but some of us wake up in the morning and can't wait to create unprecedented alignment between IP owners, creatives, and developers.
Most other genres of gamers either have their preferred platforms and are far less likely to migrate.
I thought this was a movie streaming service.
"A newly reimagined FIFA Arrives on Netflix Games"
to not mislead/confuse with the widely held informal/former name of what's now called EA Sports FC