Industry News | EA Loses Bond Licence to Activision

In what will come as a very large surprise to many, it has been revealed that after the James Bond-related travesties that Electronic Arts has brought to the world of gaming, the licence for the British spy has been yanked away from the largest Third Party in the world.

MGM Interactive and EON Productions have gone on record confirming that Activision has been granted the rights up until the year 2014 (the same year EA has just extended its FIFA rights to, by the way). This follows disastrous game after disastrous game from Electronic Arts, with From Russia With Love being the latest dire product, gradually tarnishing the good name of James Bond.

To date, the James Bond movies have grossed more than $3.6 billion since Dr No. was released in 1962. And since moving to videogames, the property has raked in a ridiculously large 30 million units's worth of sales.

Mike Griffith, President & CEO of Activision said:

"James Bond is the ultimate action movie franchise, and we look forward to establishing a long-term relationship with MGM and EON. The James Bond franchise creates tremendous global expansion opportunities for Activision as it is one of the few video game licences that appeals equally to domestic and international consumers."

This now means that Activision has the rights to make Bond games across all current and next-generation formats, as well as PC and handheld platforms. In addition, just as EA did From Russia With Love, the company can use any of the Bond films, past or present, as well as having the right to create non-movie based James Bond titles!

With Casino Royale, the 21st Bond title, launching in across Europe and US on 17th November, 2006, what is the plan for a game tie-in? There has been talk of next-generation systems only, current ones only and a mixture of the two. But with EA out of the loop, what will be the result?

Keep it locked to C3 to see what happens...