On Wednesday, May 5, EA Sports announced it was acquiring the development studio behind Super Mega Baseball, Metalhead Software.
After reaching out to sources within both EA and Metalhead, SGO has learned some more details on the merger and what it means for the future of the Super Mega Baseball franchise.
From the EA side of things, the company first began internal discussions of reaching out to the British Columbia-based studio for acquisition shortly after the release of Super Mega Baseball 3.
One source at EA Sports said that the ultimate goal is to be back in the space for nearly all of the sports they’ve let lapse over the last decade place. We were even told that there was “more to come” in the future for the EA Sports lineup.
When asked if it had anything to do with 2K Sports doing the same with the NFL, NBA Playgrounds, PGA Tour 2K, and more, we were told that EA Sports had been planning this for close to three years. The plan was to announce and work on these deals a bit sooner, but the pandemic caused delays in the talks and negotiations.
Changes for Super Mega Baseball Development?
For Metalhead Software, the acquisition will be similar to that of Formula 1 developer Codemasters as development will continue as usual for the team behind Super Mega Baseball series.
According to a rep from the company, Metalhead will continue as it has been with the same studio leadership in Victoria, BC. The only thing that’s changing on that front is having EA behind the studio, which brings a larger reach and, ultimately, larger support financially.
As far as the development timeline is concerned, the focus now is more on the next project which will be shared when the appropriate time comes. For the staff size, the studio is expecting the acquisition to allow more development hires in the “not-too-distant future”. These hires will be locally based and conducted directly by Metalhead.
For the future of the Super Mega Baseball series, it isn’t going anywhere as the team made sure to make it known that more baseball is on the horizon. When it comes to a potential working agreement with Major League Baseball, however, we were told that there were “no details to share right now as we’re still in the early stages of development”.
In a follow-up with EA, one source said that bringing MLB to the series has been talked about quite a bit internally as soon as negotiations got serious with Metalhead, but there’s nothing to announce on that front yet.
This news originally appeared on SGO Insider last week. For early access and insider information you won’t find elsewhere, sign up for SGO Insider for as little as $1/month: