Welcome to Peter Moore's Official Blog

Browse by Tags

• EA SPORTS Virtual Playbook

Changing the Game: EA SPORTS Virtual Playbook

Every once in a while, a technology emerges in sports that changes the way we watch and analyze the game. The first down yellow line in football jumps to mind, and as someone who struggled to follow hockey on television, the ill-fated glowing puck was a favorite of mine. I can even remember seeing Liverpool’s red shirts on the BBC for the first time in the early seventies when we finally got a color TV, having watched them play in “dark grayscale” for the previous decade…

We at EA SPORTS are confident we have created a similar paradigm shift in sports broadcast analysis. In development by EA for more than a year, the EA SPORTS Virtual Playbook completely re-writes the book on the way studio analysts bring to life key match-ups, formations, even actual game action itself. You will see it for the first time this weekend on several ESPN broadcasts – including its official debut on Sunday Countdown – as we help kick-off the NFL season. As you know, ESPN is our long-term partner in many areas of content development and creation, and in this instance their talented crew back in Bristol, Conn., has helped bring the technology to life in a myriad of innovative ways.

Like the leap in games from 2D to 3D back in the mid-nineties, EA SPORTS Virtual Playbook will finally bring to the sports broadcast studio the imagery and level of realism we have grown accustomed to in sports games for over a decade. Here are some exclusive behind-the-scenes glimpses from the set where testing was being done earlier this week with ESPN’s Merril Hoge:

For those of you outside of North America, please rest assured that we are not restricting this to the colonies. We are working to some day be able to apply EA SPORTS Virtual Playbook to a number of other sports, including soccer (of course).

Enjoy the games this weekend, and Go Pats!