Browse by Tags
All Tags »
FIFA 09 (
RSS)
Posted
Mar 05 2009, 01:45 PM
As I mentioned last week, I’ve ramped up my fitness regiment by starting the 30 Day Challenge last week on EA SPORTS Active. The team up in Vancouver has been doing a tremendous job in taking feedback on the tuning and the polishing of the experience (I am loath to describe it as a “game” in the traditional sense), and it’s exciting to see how far it has progressed in the past 6 months.
I am feeling OK for the most part, but it’s certainly challenging and there are certain parts of my body that have been put to the test in ways that have left their “mark”. Like the lunges and squats…
As a former PE teacher and someone who made a living for many years in athletic performance marketing, I tend to have a critical eye regarding fitness products and programs. With EA SPORTS Active, I have been impressed with the originality and variety of exercises, as well as the deep level of personalization. Hopefully I can keep up the good rhythm.
In other news, Liverpool finally put paid to any real chance of Premiership glory at Middlesborough this past Saturday, with what was probably their worst performance of the season. With Man Utd winning at Newcastle on Wednesday, all we have left is the Champions League. Interesting to see Robbie Keane score on Wednesday night for Spurs against…Middlesborough.
And for all you interactive football fans, be sure to check out the results from this week’s FIFA Interactive World Cup qualifiers in the UK . Our team was there covering all the action. The U.S. qualifiers are this weekend in San Diego and we expect equally good competition. Would love to have you come by if you’re in the area .
Cheers,
Peter
Posted
Oct 09 2008, 05:05 PM
Earlier today we announced the outstanding sales numbers from Europe for the first few days of availability of
FIFA 09, with over 1.2m copies of the game having being sold through in the first week of availability. As delighted as I am to see the fruits of the hard work of the development team paying off with a resounding vote of confidence from football video game fans, I am equally excited to see the progress we are making with the online experience for the title and across our EA SPORTS portfolio.
By Tuesday afternoon, over 410,000 FIFA 09 players had competed in over 2 million online matches, and our server data is reporting over 700k matches per day on the PS3 and Xbox 360. And of course this is before the game ships in the North American market, which happens next week. If there was ever a title to bring gamers together from around the world, obviously FIFA 09 had the best opportunity to do just that…and these numbers bode well for the success of our future plans with this franchise leading up to WC2010 in South Africa.
The quality of this year’s FIFA title is undeniable – currently our review scores are averaging in the high 80s, and we’re even tracking in the mid 80s and seven points up from last year on the PC (and I am sure all my friends in the PC sports gaming world will be very happy to see the quality of the product we are delivering this year). We’ve launched the two highest rated games of this console generation in the past month, and we remain committed to quality and innovation.
NBA LIVE 09 launched this week, and I’ll be in London this weekend in support of our sponsorship of
NBA Europe Live as we continue to partner with the NBA to bring world-class basketball to markets outside of the US. I’ll be at the O2 Arena on Sunday for the Miami Heat vs. New Jersey Nets match up. Let me know if any of you plan to attend, and we’ll see if we can meet up and say hi…
Posted
Oct 03 2008, 01:56 AM
It’s a big day for us here at EA SPORTS. Not only have I been basking in the glow of the Red Sox win last night in Anaheim, but FIFA 09 is hitting stores today and tomorrow in Europe, as the football video game season kicks into full gear around the world. We are supremely confident that this is our best FIFA ever, and look forward to seeing how fans of the game react over the weekend. Just as we’re reinventing the online experience in NBA LIVE with Dynamic DNA, FIFA launches with adidas Live Season, ushering in another example of our games evolving as the seasons evolve and bringing an even more heightened sense of realism to our games.
Some of you may have also seen the announcement we made today about Madden NFL 09 Pink, a limited edition version of Madden being sold at Target stores to coincide with National Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Proceeds from the game will contribute to a donation to the Deanna Favre HOPE Foundation. As someone who ran in the Race for the Cure last month in San Francisco, this is a cause that’s very dear to me and I’m excited we’re able to support this unique initiative.
And finally, we had the pleasure of visiting our business partners and friends at Nintendo at their headquarters in Kyoto, Japan, last week. One of the highlights of the visit was meeting with Miyamoto-san, and discussing with him our future plans for their platforms. Miyamoto-san was as gracious and charming as always, and was kind enough to create the poster pictured below for the EA SPORTS teams back home. He is a class act and a true gentleman…
Posted
Sep 20 2008, 02:00 AM
For those of you lucky enough to have either been at today’s Chelsea-Manchester United game, or watching on Sky Sports 1 from the comfort of your local UK pub, you’ll know that without any doubt the time has arrived for FIFA 09 to hit stores. A great time of the year, indeed.
While today’s match, of course, pitted two teams vying for second and third place behind this season’s eventual champion, the Mighty Reds of Liverpool (despite the temporary setback of the Stoke result), it was a landmark event for EA SPORTS.
Live at halftime of today’s game was the extended version of our exciting ‘LET’S FIFA 09’ TV campaign which dramatizes the rivalry, passion, joy and sadness of real life football, pitting teams of players from cities across Europe 10 v 10 online.
FIFA hits stores on all platforms in Europe on Oct. 3 and follows later in the month in North America.
Here’s a look at the unprecedented TV spot, that is a full FOUR minutes long:
Posted
Aug 25 2008, 05:52 PM
Just back from a good trip to Leipzig for the annual Games Convention. It was my first trip to this event and I was impressed by the scope and scale of the convention, and was also impressed how seamlessly it evolved from a trade event to a consumer extravaganza on the second day. A useful template for a future E3 maybe?
For EA SPORTS, the announcements we made in Leipzig were important examples of our commitment to globalizing our business and the priority our teams are placing on pushing innovation in the online, connected space. The response to both of our big pieces of news last week – that we have a tennis game in development at EAC, and that FIFA 09 will debut a new feature called adidas Live Season – is a testament to the opportunity we have to continue to evolve the EA SPORTS brand and become even more relevant to a new era of both sports fans and gamers alike.
Before either of us got out of town though, I had a chance to ask FIFA 09 Executive Producer Andrew Wilson a few questions about adidas Live Season. As you can imagine, the first question I got from many people was how Live Season was the same or different than Dynamic DNA in NBA LIVE. Here’s a little of what Andrew had to say:
Q: What exactly is adidas Live Season and how does it work?:
A: adidas Live Season is a new premium service for FIFA 09 PS3, Xbox 360 and PC that will update in-game player form each and every week. It will change the way real life is reflected in a football videogame forever. Our new service will run from the launch of the game to the end of the 08/09 season and is based on how real players performed in the most recent real-world matches. FIFA 09 will feel different every week throughout the entire season matching the weekly rhythm of football. That means that the actual form and strength of a player in the game is based on his real life performance. Believe me Peter, Liverpool will be as good in the game during the course of the season as in real life – or as bad….
Additionally, let me explain a couple more interesting points of Live Season:
The data that changes on a weekly basis is the form of a player. No other data will be changed weekly. We will however be making adjustments to the data with the ‘Day 1’ updates – meaning, updating player transfers and the resulting line-up changes – and the winter updates where necessary based on player performances.
On a weekly basis, players will be assigned a “player form” rating, which can be one of five ratings: bad, poor, neutral (no change), good, and excellent. For the four non-neutral form settings, we update a variety of that player’s attributes based on what position the player plays and what form setting they were assigned. Form is relative to how players are rated in our player database.
Q: Who actually is responsible for rating players and how does the system work?
A: We have a global football data experts network that works with us every year to make sure the FIFA franchise includes the most accurate player and team data. This same team of passionate experts monitor every player in the Live Season leagues to supply in-depth data each week.
Q: What happens if a player gets injured? Would he simply vanish from the game?
A: We thought a lot about that, but the players are so important to the game that we decided that we won’t take them out of the game altogether. If and when players are seriously injured, they may get a poor or bad form rating to reflect the fact they aren’t able to play up to their rating in the database. But we are not making players unavailable due to suspension or injury for the service this year.
Q: Not that I expect this from Liverpool, but what if my team is having a bad season and I’d prefer to not have the team reflecting real-world form?
A: It’s simple. You can always turn off Live Season. If Liverpool, for instance, is having a bad season you can reset the service and play with a much better Liverpool squad that was included in the game when you bought it. You can reset your squads back to the same way when you first opened the game. You can decide whether you want to play with the latest form, or with the default player database: offline and online. It’s your choice each time you play. But as a sportsman that you are I bet you would never reset it. With both Dynamic DNA in NBA LIVE as well as Live Season in FIFA, we’re finally able to create sports experiences that evolve with the season. It brings sports fans that much closer to the real-world of sports.
As I mentioned in my previous post, I am off to New York this week for the Tiger launch. I’ll bring all the news from the Big Apple, including some of the behind-the-scenes shots from the numerous events we have planned. BTW – we’re now well over 1 million views of the Tiger viral video on You Tube as of this morning...
Posted
Aug 20 2008, 05:24 PM
We’re off to a good start here at the Games Convention in Leipzig.
At our press conference that started the day, we made two important product announcements that address our strategies of globalizing our business and continuing to take advantage of online and the connected sports gaming experience.
For FIFA, we announced
adidas Live Season, a new premium service that will dynamically update player form in-game on a weekly basis. While different in execution and unique for FIFA, adidas Live Season is like Dynamic DNA in that we’re harnessing the power of online to bring the virtual world of sports games to life with real-world data. In both NBA LIVE and FIFA this year, connected consumers will enjoy the benefit of a game that evolves as the season evolves.
In real-world terms, this will allow you to track Liverpool’s inexorable march towards the Premier League Championship this season, as the form of each of the key players improves each week, while at the same time Manchester United collapses like the sub-prime mortgage market (says he, hopefully…).
I was also very excited to announce that we have a
new tennis game in development at EAC. Tennis is something we’ve looked at for some time now, and we think the time is right to capture the excitement of the sport and bring new innovation to the genre as we globalize our business. The tennis game will lead on the Wii and be the first EA SPORTS game to use the new MotionPlus accessory for the Wii Remote.
You’ll hear plenty more on both FIFA and tennis in the months to come…
Peter
Posted
Aug 19 2008, 07:54 PM
Just arrived in Leipzig for the annual Games Convention, where we will be talking about our globalization strategy for EA SPORTS, as well as giving attendees a much-anticipated deep dive on FIFA 09, by far our top selling game here in Europe.
It would be remiss of me if I didn’t thank all of the members of Madden Nation who joined us at the Rose Bowl last week for Maddenpalooza. As you can see from the attached video, a good time was had by all, as we welcomed a number of NFL legends, had non-stop music from acts like Busta Rhymes and Good Charlotte, and of course, had a full afternoon of hands-on with the game itself before our partners Wal-Mart sold the first game at the close of the evening.
We are also very proud of the outstanding reviews the game is garnering on the three consoles – great work from the team at Tiburon.
Red Sox making me feel very uneasy – mid-August and we are 4 ½ games back of Tampa Bay? Only good news is that the Yankees are even further back. Starting to feel like the wild card is the only way we get to the post season.
Across the pond, I watched Liverpool Saturday morning on Fox Soccer Channel (how did we displaced footie fans ever get by without FSC?). Unconvincing performance, but a win nonetheless. Thank God for Torres…
More later in the week.
Peter