Peter Moore on the state of EA Sports, motion control

by Richard Mitchell { Jun 22nd 2009 at 11:30PM }

Gamasutra has published a very lengthy interview with EA Sports guru Peter Moore, in which he discusses the current plans of the label and the strategies behind sports game development and publishing. Perhaps most interesting are Moore's thoughts on the new motion control technology revealed by Sony and Microsoft during E3. Moore speaks about the possibilities of the new motion controllers, saying they will impact EA Sports "very positively."

Moore says that the company is already making plans to bring its "licensed product" and its "fitness product" to these new interfaces. Specifically, Moore imagines how a game like Fight Night or the upcoming EA Sports MMA would work with them, saying, "if it were in a first-person mode it would be very very cool." Agreed. He calls the new motion controllers a "huge opportunity."

Other topics in the interview range from the possibilities for smaller, regional titles (like cricket), the future of the Madden series and how EA plans to keep EA Sports Active ... um ... active in consumers' minds. Incidentally, this is the same interview in which Moore stated that Metacritic scores aren't necessarily relevant to the sales of Wii titles.

Tags: ea, ea-sports, electronic-arts, peter-moore, playstation-motion-controller, project-natal

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Dave @ Jun 22nd 2009 11:35PM

That pic reminds me of banner ads...

[tre] @ Jun 23rd 2009 12:03AM

I can see it now! Pick your boxer: Selena Gomez v. Peter Moore!

Hey, the girl packs a punch.

Dave @ Jun 23rd 2009 1:15AM

Hit Peter Moore and win a free Xbox360!!

jason @ Jun 22nd 2009 11:41PM

next gen power glove

The Dark Wayne @ Jun 22nd 2009 11:52PM

Man, i miss when he worked for MS. Tattoos and all that, the guys at E3 just dont have the same oomph as him.

Boff @ Jun 23rd 2009 4:49AM

Couldn't agree 'Moore'.

Ahem. I'll get my coat.

Saria the Cat @ Jun 22nd 2009 11:55PM

Sweet, sweet Photoshopping effects.

Cosmo (formerly Chin-Poh) @ Jun 23rd 2009 12:02AM

He is scary....

Jed Leonard @ Jun 23rd 2009 12:05AM

Of course metacitic scores aren't relevant to the sales of wii titles. 90% of them are complete garbage, but still sell.

WREturns @ Jun 23rd 2009 12:27AM

90% of games on any console are garbage.

Alistair Azimuth PSN: johnnynumber5 @ Jun 23rd 2009 12:31AM

There are a lot of crappy games on any platform but 90% sounds pretty high as a rule of thumb. I guess it depends on your standards. Judging the numbers I vaguely remember a metacritic study published on Joystiq that said the Wii had the largest pool of low quality titles. Even if thats the case 90% is too high.

WREturns @ Jun 23rd 2009 12:36AM

I'm just giving Jed a hard time. I think that even the most ardent Nintendo fanboy would have to admit that the Wii is definitely the king of puerile shovelware garbage this gen. But the 10% (or whatever) that are actually good are very, very good.

Jedediahjl @ Jun 23rd 2009 1:27AM

Well, ya I'm exadurating. I just see so many half-baked sorry attempts to cash in on the wiis success. The wii does have some excellent games, however the shovelware is overwhelming.

ryanpaulmcgowan @ Jun 23rd 2009 12:04AM

I can't imagine using any of the motion controllers for anything other than boxing and golf. Maybe baseball with swinging a bat but... there's no real application for much of anything else. Football? I don't see how I'll be running a route, throwing a football, or doing anything with motion controls. Soccer? Pretty much the same thing.

I want to be excited for this tech, but I don't see the application in the majority of sports.

WREturns @ Jun 23rd 2009 12:33AM

Come on, use your imagination. You could use motion controls to perform a stiff arm or push your arms forward for a really hard tackle in football. You could even find ways to stimulate throwing the ball faster or softer. I can't make an argument for soccer but then I wouldn't play soccer in real life or any video game that isn't called Mario Strikers. Baseball you could use it to pitch or hit or even field when the tech becomes good enough. Boxing is obvious. Hockey could be fun with motion controls, checking people into walls and making slap shots. I think that devs are really only limited by the amount of work they put into it and the creativity they have.

ryanpaulmcgowan @ Jun 23rd 2009 1:51AM

That's cool. Except that's just waggle. You can do that with the Wii. Everybody has a Wii. Why would I want a controllerless Wii?

The Wii has proven that any game that doesn't use buttons is a massive failure. A game has to use buttons in order to be fun. That's just how it is.

You're naive if you think Natal will somehow make non-button games fun.

You're even more naive if you think something as intricate as a sports game will somehow be made better with a lack of buttons.

Ashitaka @ Jun 23rd 2009 8:01AM

I agree with everything ryan said and I feel sorry for wre not playing FOOTBALL (nobody calls it soccer) in real life.

Mr Khan @ Jun 23rd 2009 1:32PM

EA hasn't gotten it right with American Football, but Konami showed that Soccer can really be done well on Wii

stormtrooper190 PSN= (im not telling you that) @ Jun 23rd 2009 9:13PM

i thougt that was strange when you started talking about football and then the "throwing a football" part. i thougt you were taking drugs because you dont throw the ball in football, but then after that you them mention "soccer" and then i get it. you are american.even tho the hole world calls ("soccer") football exsept the US.

Alistair Azimuth PSN: johnnynumber5 @ Jun 23rd 2009 12:09AM

The problem I have with most of the EA Sports titles is that they have become stale and boring. The NFL is very exciting and the games are intense but Madden itself doesn't give you that feeling (not me anyway) and I'm a huge football fan and have played Madden every year religiously.

Anyone remember this commercial? This gets me so pumped up for football season: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=55BZ2gSsSmY

Madden doesn't give me that feeling but there is a new football game coming out that uses the Euphoria engine (no canned animations) and has a similar intensity to the real game (and that commercial!).

This is some footage from E3 of the new game called backbreaker :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=idN8rTab0ws
http://www.backbreakergame.com/

I've heard that EA might actually be publishing this game but I don't know the details. I know Natural Motion didn't want to partner with EA but I read something about how they got an offer they couldn't refuse. Maybe someone who knows more about the game than I do could follow up with something.

Anyway ... my point is that Back Breaker is more of the real thing than Madden will ever be at this point. Imagine that backbreaker game with the NFL liscense ... I guess it won't happen unless EA purchases (if they already haven't) Natural Motion. I've also heard Activision could be the publisher of the game. I'm not sure to be honest and I don't know if it's been made public.

EA needs to innovate and rebuild some of these franchises from the ground up (especially NBA Live) because they have become stale and marginal upgrades of an already flawed game isn't going to cut it.

Alistair Azimuth PSN: johnnynumber5 @ Jun 23rd 2009 12:17AM

Their MMA game has my interest piqued because it has to be done with guys not in the UFC (presumably) because of the deal with THQ. I guess they could get the rights to some of the Strikeforce, Dream and Affliction (if it's around by then) organizations as well as some other smaller shows (Bellator, Adreanline, MFC etc) on HDNet. But, that would only appeal to the hardcore fanbase because most of those guys (Overeem, Fedor, Le, Shields, Belfort, Khalidev, Aoki, Alvarez, Kawajiri etc etc) aren't known (besides Fedor) to the casual UFC fan who thinks they are the only relevant organization with good fighters. They could probably get some of Zuffa's (UFC parent company) fighters from the WEC in the game which would help build a roster. It's great to have guys like Shamrock, Abbott, Gracie, Severn and Kerr in there but they also need a stable of relevant fighters. I have the feeling it will be Fight Night Round 4 all over again with a roster of mostly retired fighters.

Hellion42 @ Jun 23rd 2009 6:02AM

@ Alistair: Roster decisions notwithstanding, I see a motion-controlled MMA game as somewhere between a novelty and an abject failure. It's either waggle (along with its slow country cousins wiggle and wobble) or someone gets hurt.

On second thought, this could be the second coming of Darwin. Count me in.

Mr Khan @ Jun 23rd 2009 1:34PM

I thought BackBreaker had become vaporware. That it was just a tech demo for Euphoria, and after Euphoria took off, they haven't really had any follow-up on that project.

Would be interested to see that it was still alive

paperless @ Jun 24th 2009 3:30PM

Stale and boring? :O FIFA 09 is amazing and i can't wait for FNR4.

TheLionOfAzzalle @ Jun 23rd 2009 12:12AM

This is the one reason why I don't like the Wii. I keep telling myself that these things are truly "accessories" and that the consumer doesn't really require them. However the trouble with that is that

1) Companies like EA do everything in their power to disabuse customers of that notion. They go out of their way to promote their various toys are being essential to the "fun" factor of w/e game

2) The public right off the bat assumes that these toys are necessary and as such some people are resistant to spending money on the game because they fear they are going to be sucked into buying ridiculous expensive accesories on TOP of the expensive game.

Unfortunately the idea of motion controllers may lead to it's abuse by all these 3rd party companies. Hopefully though they draw the line somewhere and strike a balance.

Alistair Azimuth PSN: johnnynumber5 @ Jun 23rd 2009 12:27AM

Pretty thoughtful response. I know what you mean and I agree with you. Let's not even get into their current accessories that weren't originally designed to use motion plus and may not have adequate space for the additional hardware. That might have a bit of a backlash. My buddy who manages a game stop was telling me one guy asked if he had to buy a new tennis racket to use with motion plus. Well, depending on the way the one he owns is designed he just might have to do something like that. This is because Motion+ was an afterthought and not something that had been planned since release.

I don't hate the Wii for it (or at all really) but it is one of the things that kind of irritates me. In our house alone we have probably 2 or 3 plastic accessories that aren't necessary but supposedly add to the immersion of the game.

At the end of the day it's just another source of revenue for 3rd parties.

Ashitaka @ Jun 23rd 2009 8:06AM

I... upvoted... LionOfAzzalle?

I feel dirty.

Jedediahjl @ Jun 23rd 2009 1:31AM

you should see the gloves that gamestop started selling when punch out came out.

http://www.n4g.com/News-330338.aspx

The buttons are completely asthetic, and the gloves just sit on top of your hand, so you can grip the wiimote.

mirage @ Jun 23rd 2009 9:40AM

I wish someone with some say would address the mess that NCAA Football has become. It seems to get worse and worse every year because they seem to be building off of a flawed foundation this generation.

KilgoreTrout XL @ Jun 23rd 2009 10:06AM

I wish they'd release cricket games in the states. I spent 3 years in england during my middle school years and played cricket a lot. It's like getting an at-bat in baseball, but it lasts for an hour. Fun game (the length of the international matches is pretty amazing though- wouldn't fly in the US television market.)