The 800-pound gorilla, as far as skateboard video games go, is the Tony Hawk series published by Activision. The franchise has sold over $1 billion in sales worldwide and has become an annual cash cow for the game publisher. With this much money at stake, Electronic Arts has decided to enter this lucrative genre and will be offering its version next year. The EA title will offer 14 skating pros, not including Tony Hawk, of course, and will be available for the PS3 and other next-gen game machines. The title will be developed by EA Canada and is simply known as Skate, according to PSM magazine.
Market analysts are doubtful about the EA version will be able to topple the king of skateboard games. Colin Sebastian of Lazard Capital Markets remarked, any competitor, even EA, will have a hard time dethroning the king of skateboarding. "While Electronic Arts is certainly a formidable industry competitor, we believe the Tony Hawk brand and reputation for quality game-play are likely to provide Activision with significant competitive barriers… other skateboarding titles in the market historically have not sold particularly well."
While Sebastian foresees a difficult road ahead for EA in taking any significant market share away from the Tony Hawk franchise, EA Canada is no slouch when it comes to game development. The studio produced the very popular snowboarding franchise SSX, known for its significant entertainment value and high production values. If EA has any chance in competing with Activision in the skateboard park, they likely couldn,t have selected a better studio then EA Canada.
