Sports is a big business for EA. At Microsoft’s Xbox reveal in May, EA revealed four of its titles headed to next-gen consoles: NBA Live, FIFA, Madden and UFC. EA has since gone on to explain that those titles will be powered by its next-gen Ignite engine and has clarified that other sports titles like NHL aren’t making the leap to next-gen just yet.
In an interview at E3, EA Labels president Frank Gibeau explained the decision to keep those titles on current-gen for now, plus the EA's goals in reviving NBA Live and why we haven’t heard anything about Tiger Woods.
Golf is a vital part of our business and we believe in it greatly. We’re going to get to it in the right sequence.
“Each franchise has its own circumstance,” Gibeau told IGN about the titles not yet announced for next-gen. “You can fully rest assured that you’ll see the full EA Sports lineup over the course of gen 4. It’s about resourcing, tactical market opportunities, how big the platform is. You’ll definitely see all of our titles on gen 4.”
One title that was conspicuously absent from both console reveals and E3 was Tiger Woods, which is said to be taking a year off. According to Gibeau, it’s simply a question of resources.
“We have a lot going on,” Gibeau said. “One of the things at EA is, like any company, you have finite resources, and more importantly you have finite talent. What’s important to me, when I run the studios and look at it, is making sure that our best people aren’t spread too thin, and that we’re not trying to do too many things where we end up with a bunch of 70-rated games. I’d rather have two 90s than five 70s. The 'fewer, bigger' strategy is how we’re looking at it. We’re going to nail golf. Golf is a vital part of our business and we believe in it greatly. We’re going to get to it in the right sequence as we look at how our technology and teams and talent are available.”
Our goal for this next cycle is to build a great basketball business and compete with 2K and win back the customers.
Finally, we asked Gibeau about the decision to revive NBA Live. Given that NBA Live 13 was canceled and an NBA Live title has not been released since NBA Live 10 in 2009, can the franchise still compete?
“At one time we had a great business in basketball,” Gibeau said. “There was a great rivalry between 2K and us back in the day. Unfortunately, we didn’t deliver what we wanted to deliver, and they did a great job creating an exceptionally good sports game. We thrive on competition. We want to come back at them in gen 4. That’s one of the reasons why we’re focused exclusively on gen 4, so we don’t have to compromise the game at all to get a gen 3 version of it out. We’re in basketball for the long term. Our goal for this next cycle is to build a great basketball business and compete with 2K and win back the customers through our quality and our performance.”
For more on EA Sports, read our interview with EA Sports head Andrew Wilson.
Andrew Goldfarb is IGN’s news editor. Keep up with pictures of the latest food he’s been eating by following @garfep on Twitter or garfep on IGN.
Source : ign[dot]com
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