Browse by Tags
All Tags »
FIFA (
RSS)
Posted
Oct 03 2009, 12:10 PM
As FIFA launched throughout Europe this week and hundreds of thousands of gamers began competing from London to Madrid, Barcelona to Frankfurt, I want to send my congratulations to our FIFA development and marketing teams in Vancouver and Geneva. In fact, I had a friendly little wager with FIFA producer Dave Rutter (the terms of which will remain between he and I) about rewarding the team if the game was above 90 for its average review scores on launch day...and here we are on October 2 with the highest rated sports game of this console generation at a 92...well done team.
It's always a challenge to improve on an already universally-acclaimed game, as was the case with FIFA 09, but the team at EAC continued to innovate and add polish to the jewel. I had the pleasure of meeting with them in Vancouver this past week, and passed on my thanks and admiration on behalf of all footie gamers from around the world.
We asked "How Big Can Football Get?" when we recently launched a brilliant new TV campaign in the UK, and we're all anxious to see the answer to that question over the coming weeks. I'd love to hear what you think of the game - please let me know. And for those of you in North America, you just have to wait a few more weeks to join in.
Should be an exciting sports weekend - today I'll be in Berkeley to see if the Cal Bears can rebound from an abysmal performance in Eugene when they host USC. If Kevin Riley can regain his confidence and complete some passes early, maybe we will be able to get Jahvid Best going and put the Trojans on the back foot. If not, we'll be hearing that annoying USC fight song all evening long... And on Sunday, Liverpool plays Chelsea. Up early to watch that one, and looking for my Mighty Reds to rebound from the poor showing in Florence in midweek. I'll actually be at Stamford Bridge, Chelsea's home stadium in London on Wednesday delivering a keynote address to executives from across the world of football, so let's hope they welcome me still if Liverpool takes the win. The speech focuses on how sports marketing is rapidly evolving, using FIFA 10 as a best practice case study.
I couldn't be more excited by how well NHL 10 has been received, the overwhelming interest in FIFA's big launch this week in Europe, and the quality of NBA LIVE, which hits stores next week here in North America ready to put up a fight against what is always stiff competition.
Posted
Sep 10 2009, 04:22 PM
Titans or Steelers. What do you think? As interested as I am in tonight’s opener, I’m more worried right now about the Cardinals. I selected Larry Fitzgerald in the first round of my fantasy football draft Tuesday night, and then added Kurt Warner as my starting QB in the second. I guess I know who I’ll be rooting for this year (in addition to my beloved Pats).
Feels like just yesterday that I was watching Super Bowl XLIII, and here we are seven months later with another season upon us. Of course, we went on to put both Troy Polamalu and Larry Fitzgerald on the cover of Madden this year, and as the presenting sponsor of NFL Kickoff weekend, we couldn’t be more excited to see the start of the NFL season finally upon us.
Madden continues to bring in a record number of gamers competing online, we're very pleased with the great critical acclaim for a product we're quite proud of, and yesterday we expanded the franchise to the App Store for the first time. Now you can play Madden on your iPod touch and iPhone. It's Madden, so of course you have all the NFL players, teams and stadiums, along with full control over team depth charts, cross-team trading, modes like Play Now or Season, and John Madden coaching tips.
Hopefully you also saw that we've just re-launched EA SPORTS Football World (available in English, French and German) and also our new Game Face tool. It lets users upload photos of their face to EA SPORTS Football World and EA SPORTS.com to create their virtual likeness on the sites. Players can then download their Game Face to be their Virtual Pro in FIFA Soccer 10 like I did.
Game Face takes player creation to the next level in FIFA with unrivalled physical likeness and, in my case, makes my dream of playing for my Mighty Reds of Liverpool finally possible. And talking soccer, delighted to see England booking their tickets to South Africa with the surgical dismantling of Croatia this week (including two goals from Stevie G). Could this be the year??? 1966 is such a distant memory now...
Few other thoughts:
- Springboks - thanks for your posts about rugby. Right now, we have no plans to develop and publish a rugby game.
- Red Sox continue to splutter their way towards the play offs (hopefully). A season that started looking like we had more pitching than we knew what to do with is finishing with only Jon Lester as the only reliable arm in the rotation. Unfortunately, the Yankees look unstoppable this year...
Posted
Aug 18 2009, 07:17 AM
After a busy week in the UK, culminating in the Edinburgh Interactive Festival, I returned home to San Francisco for the weekend to support our latest announcement regarding EA SPORTS MMA. And what a blockbuster announcement it was, welcoming 5-time World Champion Randy Couture to the growing roster of fighters that will be featured in the game, which will ship in 2010. Hot on the heels of our recent announcement of Fedor Emelianenko,
Randy's addition to the team gives us two of the greatest fighters in the sport today, and a solid platform upon which we will continue to attract more of MMA's best talent, thus furthering our goal of growing the sport through marketing investment and the creation of a world-class game experience.
That evening I was thrilled to be able to attend the Strikeforce event at the HP Pavilion in San Jose, of which we were a co-sponsor and had three fighters on the card wearing EA SPORTS branding on their shorts. There were particularly impressive outings from Gegard Mousasi and Gilbert Melendez, but of course the main event was the bout between Gina Carano and Cris "Cyborg" Santos. Much to the disappointment of a passionate crowd, the fight didn't get out of the first round, as Cyborg overpowered Gina from the opening bell...
I am now back in Europe, having just finished my section of the EA press conference here at GamesCom in Cologne. Dave Rutter, producer on FIFA 10, showed the latest developments on the title as we ready for the October launch. Just to make sure I wasn't suffering from any lingering effects of jet lag, Olympic Gold Medalist and 4-time World Champion Figure Skater Katarina Witt put me through my paces on EA SPORTS Active More Workouts, the latest iteration of our top-selling interactive fitness product for the Wii...
Finally, it was a disappointing weekend for me sports-wise, with Liverpool getting off to a dismal start to the new EPL season with a loss to Tottenham Hotspur with a lackluster display that only served to underline how weak our squad now is with the loss of Xabi Alonso. To add to the misery, the Red Sox slipped out of the lead in the AL Wild Card race with a series loss to the Texas Rangers, looking almost disinterested in the process...
Will post latest updates from Cologne as the week develops.
Posted
Mar 27 2008, 03:14 AM
So it’s 6am Sunday and I’m here in the office at Redwood Shores. Why? Workaholic? Nope. Stupid? It has been said. No, I’m watching my Mighty Reds vs. Man U on Setanta Sports in the EA SPORTS Bar…
And I wish I had never bothered. Down to 10 men after Mascherano’s completely avoidable red card (never get in the referee’s face while you already have a yellow card), Liverpool look second-rate in the face of the United onslaught, and any dreams of a Premier League title this year are now dashed once-and-for-all.
On a more positive note, as you probably know, all of our development work and brand and product marketing is conducted in our studios in Vancouver (EAC) and Orlando (Tiburon). I spend a lot of time at both studios, and this past Thursday was a particularly fun trip for me up to EAC in the Vancouver suburb of Burnaby. Purpose of my trip was to spend a day with our very talented FIFA team. It was both an educational as well as motivating day for me. I got to visit with many of the team at their workstations, and get a deeper understanding of the work we doing to maintain our positive momentum in the very competitive soccer category. It was also personally fulfilling to me to interact with so many teammates that are supremely passionate about their work (as well as “the beautiful game”).
While I can’t divulge much about what I saw as we prepare for a busy soccer year, with our Euro 2008 game shipping in advance of the tournament being held in Austria and Switzerland, and then of course our FIFA game later in the year, I can tell you that the team continues to do stellar work. Anyone that is a fan of the franchise has every reason to feel excited about what is on tap for 2008. I also should mention that one of the best moments of my day was getting out on the pitch and playing some soccer at lunch time with the team. Here’s a picture of the team.
You’ve also heard me start to talk about what a special year this is going to be for EA SPORTS with the 20th anniversary of Madden upon us. As our planning and development continues to kick into high gear, I can promise you this is going to be a year to remember. Even though I have people starting to stop me in the halls even at EA trying to get the latest scoop on this year’s game — who’s going to be on the cover, what bands are on the soundtrack, what are Tom Brady’s ratings going to be, etc. — I’m sworn to secrecy to not divulge too many details until next month. But I can tell you this, we do have some news to announce in the next day or two. Keep an eye out for the first in what will be a series of announcements over the next few months about the Madden 20th anniversary...
As a preview to my next posting take a look at the following web site: http://www.myfootballclub.co.uk/index
For the princely sum of £35 (about $75), I am an part “owner” of the club. It is a fascinating experiment in social networking applied to sports. Stay tuned for a interview with Will Brooks, a UK sports journalist who is the creator of the concept.
I'd be remiss if I didn’t mention the start of the NCAA Tournament last weekend. If only I had put a little more faith into the simulation we ran with our NCAA March Madness 08 game engine, which correctly predicted 13 of the Sweet 16, I wouldn’t be bringing up the rear in our friendly EA office pool. That’s right, I’m in DEAD LAST. I have to say, kind of an embarrassing. But, what do I know about college basketball?
- Peter
Posted
Mar 14 2008, 08:11 PM
En route to Orlando
from Vancouver, where I have spent the past couple of days meeting with
development staff and reviewing our plans for the upcoming year. Our core
franchises out of this studio, FIFA, NBA, and NHL, are all looking very good
and the teams are crunching as they all get ready for alpha milestones. Picture
attached of the studio, EAC, in the Vancouver suburb of Burnaby – wonderful
campus. We are also developing FaceBreaker there, which will be a departure
from our usual fully-licensed sports games. I’m sure all of you have read about
the game and seen the various screenshots that the team has published. It’s a
ton of fun, and will help us enormously broaden our reach with the more casual
sports fan.
I want to take a moment to address how I am utilizing the feedback that I am
delighted to see accumulating on the various threads. First of all, I want to
thank all of you who are taking the time to post your thoughts and provide the
thoughtful input about the various franchises. While it pains me to read some
of the issues that we clearly need to do a better job resolving, I am
encouraged to read how passionate you are about these titles, and how much you
want us to improve in certain areas. I am condensing and prioritizing the
issues and addressing them with the executive producers. Now let me be clear –
just because you badly want something integrated into the game doesn’t mean
that we can, or even agree with. Our teams do a tremendous amount of research
for every product we create and start laying down their new feature roadmaps in
advance of production work beginning. Having said that, many of you have
provided great ideas that we may already be implementing or that we will see if
we can add before we lock down features. No guarantees on anything, but please
know that I am reading every post, and pulling out some of the innovative ideas
that you are proposing.
As we get further into the development cycle, and the teams feel more
comfortable talking about new innovations, I will report back to you on what we
have included based on your feedback. Consider yourselves honorary members of
the extended development teams…
Feeling better about my Mighty Reds again today. Magnificent victory over the
powerful Inter Milan club yesterday, which I watched over the lunch period up
in Vancouver. We were fortunate that Materazzi got shown a second yellow, which
put them on the back foot for the rest of the game, but I thought we fully
deserved the margin of victory and it sets us up well for the second leg in the
cauldron that is the San Siro on March 11th