EA, & Marvel Part Ways

When EA Chicago was closed last year, one of the issues unaddressed at the time was the fate of the studio's projects, a Marvel fighting game and a second fighter based on a new intellectual property. That mystery has been cleared up a little, as Electronic Arts and Marvel have terminated both the project and their licensing agreement, according to a GameTap report.

The deal between Marvel and EA dates back to 2004, when the companies announced a multiyear agreement for fighting games featuring famous Marvel characters alongside new EA-created heroes. The first offspring of the deal was Marvel Nemesis: Rise of the Imperfects, a poorly received effort that saw its price slashed by 40 percent less than two months after its release.

Another mystery in the wake of the EA Chicago closing--the future of the studio's general manager, Kudo Tsunoda--was recently solved when Microsoft confirmed the developer's hiring. Tsunoda will now work at Microsoft Game Studios under corporate vice president Shane Kim. However, a growing tide of unconfirmed reports has Microsoft's own Marvel project--an Xbox 360 and PC massively multiplayer online role-playing game--being put on indefinite hold.

This is a shame really. Why not give Capcom back the license? Then we might enjoy online multiplayer on Live or PSN or even... Marvel vs Capcom 3!! I think there's enough demand out there for it, and it would be a million seller very quickly in my opinion.

The Marvel vs Capcom series has lots of diehard fans out there, so why not? It was once thought that since Marvel increased the licensing fees due to the then recent success of its films, Capcom lost the license due to inability to pay the fees. Not true at all. MvC2 was already ported to the Dreamcast, PS2 & Xbox more than 2 years after the arcade version of MvC2, but they weren't selling enough units. By 2003, Capcom & Marvel's partnership ended.