FIFA EA

 EA FIFA

 

FIFA, also known as FIFA Football or FIFA Soccer, is a series of association football video games or football simulator, released annually by Electronic Arts under the EA Sports label. While there was no major competition when EA released the first titles in their American football and hockey series, football video games such as Sensible Soccer, Kick Off and Match Day had been developed since the late 1980s and already competitive in the games market when EA Sports announced a football game as the next addition to their EA Sports label.
When the series began in late 1993, it was notable for being the first to have an official licence from FIFA, the world governing body of football. The latest installments in the series contain many exclusively-licensed leagues including leagues and teams from around the world, including the German Bundesliga and 2. Bundesliga, English Premier League and Football League, Italian Serie A, Spanish La Liga, Portuguese Primeira Liga, French Ligue 1, Dutch Eredivisie, Brazilian Campeonato Brasileiro Série A, Mexican Liga MX, American Major League Soccer, South Korean K-League and Australian A-League, allowing the use of real leagues, clubs, and player names and likenesses within the games. In addition, internationally popular clubs from around the world, including some teams from Greece, Turkey, Argentina and South Africa, without those nations' entire leagues.
The main series has been complemented by additional installments based on single major tournaments, such as the FIFA World Cup, UEFA European Football Championship, and UEFA Champions League, as well as a series of football management titles.
As of FIFA 13, Lionel Messi is the face of the franchise, appearing on the front cover of every game released in the series and in promotional campaigns and advertisements. He replaced Wayne Rooney, who appeared on seven straight covers from FIFA 06 to FIFA 12.
As of 2011, the FIFA franchise has been localised into 18 languages and available in 51 countries. The series has sold more than 100 million copies worldwide, making it the best-selling sports video game franchise in the world, and one of the best-selling video game franchises. Also FIFA 12 holds the record for the "fastest selling sports game ever" with over 3.2 million games sold and over $186 million generated at retail in its first week of release.
The franchise's latest release is FIFA 15, released on September 23, 2014 in North America and September 25, 2014 in Europe for multiple gaming systems.

History

While FIFA 95 did not add much other than the ability to play with club teams, FIFA 96 pushed the boundaries. For the first time with real player names by obtaining the FIFPro license, the PlayStation, PC, 32X and Sega Saturn versions used EA's "Virtual Stadium" engine, with 2D sprite players moving around a real-time 3D stadium. FIFA 97 improved on this with polygonal models for players and added an indoor soccer mode, but an early pinnacle was reached with FIFA: Road to World Cup 98. This version featured much improved graphics, a complete World Cup with qualifying rounds (including all national teams) and refined gameplay. Months later, World Cup 98, EA's first officially-licensed tournament game.
FIFA games have been met with some minor criticism; such as improvements each game features over its predecessor. As the console market is expanding, FIFA is being challenged directly by other titles such as Konami's Pro Evolution Soccer series. Both FIFA and Pro Evolution Soccer have a large following but FIFA sales is rising as much as 23 percent year-on-year. In 2010, the FIFA series had sold over 100 million copies making it the best-selling sports video game franchise in the world and the most profitable EA Sports title. With FIFA 12 selling 3.2 million copies in the first week after its September 27 North American debut in 2011, EA Sports dubbed it "the most successful launch in EA Sports history."
In 2012, EA Sports signed Lionel Messi to the FIFA franchise, luring him away from the competitor Pro Evolution Soccer. Messi's likeness was then immediately placed on the cover of FIFA Street. In 2013. the Spanish professional women's footballer Vero Boquete started a petition on Change.org, which called upon Electronic Arts to introduce female players in the FIFA series. The petition attracted 20,000 signatures in 24 hours.



 

Star Wars 

 

Star Wars is an American epic space opera franchise centered on a film series created by George Lucas. The film series, consisting of two trilogies (and an upcoming third), has spawned an extensive media franchise called the Expanded Universe including books, television series, computer and video games, and comic books. These supplements to the franchise resulted in significant development of the series' fictional universe, keeping the franchise active in the 16-year interim between the two film trilogies. The franchise depicts a galaxy described as "far, far away" in the distant past, and commonly portrays Jedi as a representation of good, in conflict with the Sith, their evil counterpart. Their weapon of choice, the lightsaber, is commonly recognized in popular culture. The franchise's storylines contain many themes, with strong influences from philosophy and religion.
The first film in the series was released under the title Star Wars on May 25, 1977, by 20th Century Fox, and became a worldwide pop culture phenomenon followed by two sequels, released at three-year intervals. Sixteen years after the release of the trilogy's final film, the first in a new prequel trilogy of films was released. The three prequel films were also released at three-year intervals, with the final film of the trilogy released on May 19, 2005. In 2012, The Walt Disney Company acquired Lucasfilm for $4.05 billion and announced that it would produce three new films, with the first film, Star Wars: The Force Awakens, planned for release in 2015. 20th Century Fox still retains the distribution rights to the first two Star Wars trilogies, owning permanent rights for the original film Episode IV: A New Hope, while holding the rights to Episodes I–III, V and VI until May 2020. Reactions to the original trilogy were positive, with the last film being considered the weakest, while the prequel trilogy received a more mixed reaction, with most of the praise being for the final film, according to most review aggregator websites. All six of the main films in the series were nominated for or won Academy Awards. All of the main films have been box office successes, with the overall box office revenue generated by the Star Wars films (including the theatrical Star Wars: The Clone Wars) totalling $4.38 billion, making it the fifth-highest-grossing film series. The success has also led to multiple re-releases in theaters for the series.

Theatrical films

The film series began with Star Wars, released on May 25, 1977. This was followed by two sequels: The Empire Strikes Back, released on May 21, 1980, and Return of the Jedi, released on May 25, 1983. The opening crawl of the sequels disclosed that they were numbered as "Episode V" and "Episode VI" respectively, though the films were generally advertised solely under their subtitles. Though the first film in the series was simply titled Star Wars, with its 1981 re-release it had the subtitle Episode IV: A New Hope added to remain consistent with its sequel, and to establish it as the middle chapter of a continuing saga.
In 1997, to correspond with the 20th anniversary of A New Hope, Lucas released a "Special Edition" of the Star Wars trilogy to theaters. The re-release featured alterations to the three films, primarily motivated by the improvement of CGI and other special effects technologies, which allowed visuals that were not possible to achieve at the time of the original filmmaking. Lucas continued to make changes to the films for subsequent releases, such as the first ever DVD release of the original trilogy on September 21, 2004 and the first ever Blu-ray release of all six films on September 16, 2011. Reception of the Special Edition was mixed, prompting petitions and fan edits to produce restored copies of the original trilogy.
More than two decades after the release of the original film, the series continued with a prequel trilogy; consisting of Episode I: The Phantom Menace, released on May 19, 1999; Episode II: Attack of the Clones, released on May 16, 2002; and Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, released on May 19, 2005. On August 15, 2008, Star Wars: The Clone Wars was released theatrically as a lead-in to the weekly animated TV series of the same name. Star Wars: The Force Awakens is scheduled for release on December 18, 2015. In 2013, it was announced the original Star Wars film will be the first Hollywood film to be dubbed into Navajo.

Film	Release date	Director(s)	Screenwriter(s)	Producer(s)	Status
Original trilogy
Star Wars	May 25, 1977	George Lucas	George Lucas	Gary Kurtz	Released
The Empire Strikes Back	May 21, 1980	Irvin Kershner	Leigh Brackett & Lawrence Kasdan
Return of the Jedi	May 25, 1983	Richard Marquand	George Lucas & Lawrence Kasdan	Howard Kazanjian
Prequel trilogy
Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace	May 19, 1999	George Lucas	George Lucas	Rick McCallum	Released
Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones	May 16, 2002		George Lucas & Jonathan Hales
Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith	May 19, 2005		George Lucas
Animated special
Star Wars: The Clone Wars	August 15, 2008	Dave Filoni	Henry Gilroy, Steven Melching & Scott Murphy	George Lucas & Catherine Winder	Released
Sequel trilogy
Star Wars: The Force Awakens	December 18, 2015	J. J. Abrams	Lawrence Kasdan & J. J. Abrams	Kathleen Kennedy, J. J. Abrams & Bryan Burk	Post-production
Star Wars Episode VIII	2017	Rian Johnson	Rian Johnson	Kathleen Kennedy	Pre-production
Star Wars Episode IX	2019	TBA	TBA