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But ultimately went a different way leaving history to be written by EA.
"Hello everyone and welcome back to another GRTV News.
Today we're going to be talking a little bit about PlayStation and a little bit about FIFA.
Because a new report has come out and done the rounds that basically states that PlayStation had a chance to basically grab the FIFA licence."
"Now this was a while ago, before FIFA really exploded into being this massive game franchise where it was almost unavoidable.
Obviously it's not FIFA anymore, it's EA Sports FC.
There was a chance before that happened for PlayStation to take the licence for their own.
Now, again, you can say a lot of things."
"If that happened, would FIFA be as popular as it is today?
If PlayStation were making their games instead of EA, would we be talking about playing FIFA in the same light?
Would it be maybe eFootball or PES that became the big one because of that?
I don't know, but the point is that FIFA is astronomically large and it's an EA-owned franchise."
"It's probably a large proportion of why EA was valued as high as it was in the recent acquisition.
And yet there was a world where PlayStation could have snagged that licence for its own to bring FIFA as part of the Sony Interactive Entertainment stuff.
So anyway, let's dive on in.
So yeah, PlayStation tried to make FIFA games."
"The world could have been very different if the console maker hadn't decided to settle with this as football.
So Electronic Arts FIFA games were and still are in the form of EA Sports FC, one of the world's most known and best-selling franchises.
We've seen multiple competitors come and go through the years, but most of them have vanished into thin air because of less satisfying gameplay, worse graphics and or not having real players, stadiums and such in them."
"That last part makes today's story especially interesting.
The game business's Christopher Dring had the opportunity to talk with Juan Montez, the VP of software development at PlayStation from 1994 to 2000, and the latter revealed that the console maker had tried getting the FIFA licence back then.
The technology was there, it was pretty good, and we were very close to getting the FIFA licence."
"Very, very close.
But in the end, we decided not to pursue it in order to have a good relationship with a third party.
But we were very close to being in that space.
They did instead settle with getting endorsed by FIFA Pro, which meant that Sony Computer Entertainment's This Is Football and This Is Football 2 at least had a few real players in stadiums."
"An interesting detail, do you think PlayStation could have changed history by making football game series?
Or football games, sorry.
It certainly would have been an interesting world to live in where PlayStation makes FIFA games instead of EA.
Again, we're not talking about PlayStation having an opportunity to bring FIFA into its exclusive line-up back in 2012 or something like that, as FIFA was becoming an absolute monster."
"We're talking mid-90s here, so really before video games exploded in the way that they have as of this century, really.
So it's hard to say what could have happened from this, but there's a world where FIFA is as popular as it is today except PlayStation developed it.
There's a world where FIFA is not nearly as popular as it ever has been because PlayStation developed it."
"But it's just still this unusual world where the branches split and we went this way with EA and we could have gone that way with PlayStation.
So it's a fascinating situation.
It's perhaps one that a company like Konami, for example, looks back on and thinks, if we just pushed them that way, then maybe we could have ran away with things a little bit here."
"But who knows?
But yeah, that's all the time that I have on today's episode of GSTV News.
I'll be back tomorrow for the next one of the week, so thank you for joining me and I'll see you all on the next one.
Take care, everyone."
