In an interview with Time Extension, Tom Stone, former vice president of European marketing for Electronic Arts, stated that before the renewal of the FIFA license in 1997, he had a meeting with Chris Deering, who was then president of Sony Computer Entertainment Europe. At this point, Deering told him that Sony had been offered the FIFA rights by ISL (the company that handled the FIFA license at the time), and Stone was very angry about this. It appears that the deal was offered by FIFA without EA’s knowledge.
However, Deering told him that he would not accept the offer. Stone speculates that Deering likely took into account how much support EA had given PlayStation when making the decision to turn down the offer.
Years later, it is impossible to know for sure how things would have gone if Sony had had a different view on this issue and games bearing the FIFA brand had been developed by Sony exclusively for PlayStation. In the same interview, Stone also stated that he thought “EA would have reacted pretty badly” if PlayStation had agreed to the deal.
EA Sports FC 24, the latest game in EA Sports’ football series, was released for Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, PS4, PS5, Nintendo Switch and PC at the end of last month. This was the first football game since the studio abandoned the FIFA name and brand.
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