EA's Online Woes

On a somewhat related note, CNN Money is reporting about EA's terrible failures in the online realm. While EA has profits in the billions, its online division is losing money. Origin's Ultima is EA's only real online money-maker.

Next on the hit list could be "Earth & Beyond", an online role-playing game that eschews dwarves and dragons for outer space exploration and combat. Again, EA will not break down how many paying subscribers it has for the game, but The NPD Group, which tracks game sales, reports the game has only sold 53,000 copies since its launch in September 2002 – and sales are barely registering these days despite a significant reduction to the retail price.

About the only thing really firing for the online business is its oldest title; "Ultima Online" boasts between 220,000 and 230,000 subscribers. Still, that's only half the number of subscribers of Sony's (SNE: Research, Estimates) "EverQuest", whose monthly fee is $5 higher.