Tiger Woods PGA Tour 09 (Wii)

By Electronic Arts, EA Tiburon | Released: July 2008 | Also on: Xbox 360, PS3, PS2, PSP

Sports
Genre:: 1-4
Num Players:: TBC
Rating:: 1,614 of 10,331
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Tiger Woods 09 Interview

By Wesley Yin-Poole - 29/07/2008 - 1:45pm GMT

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VideoGamer.com: So the announcement was a surprise to you guys as much as it was for us?

GR: It was a surprise for us as well. There might have been someone at EA who knew about it, but the Tiger Team wasn't aware of it.

VideoGamer.com: Strange considering the implications for your game.

GR: Yeah, it would have been nice to know. I'm sure Nintendo has its reasons. I'm sure they have plans for it. So, like I said, we're definitely looking at it and it will be a big part of Tiger for next year. The implications for golf are tremendous. I know so many people who are golfers in real life, and they play Tiger Wii and they're like "I wanna get my real swing in there". There's a certain level you can get to with the hardware as it currently is, and it's fun and it's exciting, but it's not a real golf swing. It's a simulation of a golf swing. With that gyroscope, and we were kind of debating this on our team for a while, we were hammering our engineers to be able to get real swings in there, but the hardware just isn't capable of that. With the addition of the gyroscope it's much more accurate.

VideoGamer.com: Do you think it could revolutionise sports games?

GR: Absolutely. I think it could revolutionise video games in general. I'm surprised that Nintendo is able to make it affordable. A gyroscope is an expensive piece of equipment, so they must have a good partner working with them. We were discussing what it would take to get a really real swing, and they were like, well you'd need a gyroscope. I did some research on my own, and gyroscopes are pricey. EA isn't in the business of creating peripherals, but it's something we toyed with a little bit. I say leave it to the people like Nintendo. They know what they're doing.

VideoGamer.com: There were lots of rumours before E3 that Microsoft was going to announce a motion controller as well.

GR: Yeah, we're interested to see that. We're interested to see what that's going to be.

VideoGamer.com: If it's something that incorporates similar technology then it's something you could build into future versions of Tiger on 360.

GR: I think they would need to at this point. If Microsoft was going to get in on the game, they would need something that incorporated a gyroscope and accelerometer. Microsoft could do it. For the Tiger team I think it's huge for us. Something like that fits like a glove. For a golf game it fits perfectly. You don't even need to think about it. You're holding the controller in your hand. It feels like a club. It's shaped like a golf club. You can do that natural motion. It's not like a shooter where you have to run around and still have to use an analogue stick. You can really feel like you're playing golf in your living room. I think that's a huge advantage for golf games and games in general.

VideoGamer.com: Do you think Microsoft will release something like that?

GR: I can't speculate on if they would, but I think it would be a smart move on their part to do that. That's my opinion. I don't really know what their plans are, but I would like to see it.

VideoGamer.com: You don't have any inside knowledge?

GR: I don't really know anyone at Microsoft. Well, I know a couple of people, but no one who would know about that. It's probably something they're keeping tight lipped for a reason. They're trying to compete directly with Nintendo now. Obviously the big three are always battling it out. If Microsoft does come out with it then I'm sure Sony would have to do its own thing. It's a gruelling competition, but I think there's room for all three. All three have their own things to offer.

VideoGamer.com: I've always wondered why EA doesn't release its own console.

GR: We do games (laughs). Obviously it's way over my pay grade (laughs). I know there are rumours about it and this and that, but we do games and we do games well. That's something that we should really focus on.

VideoGamer.com: You could have all those sports licences exclusive on one console.

GR: As a gamer I wouldn't like to see that. I think games need to be platform agnostic, because our goal, you've got to remember that our goal as a company is to get out to as many people as possible. We want everyone to be our customer. We want to appeal to every demographic, every age group, every country and nationality. Putting yourself on a console like that and saying you need to buy our console, it's a little too exclusive, which is why we release our games on every console possible. We want people to have access to EA sports and that experience. If you only own a PC or you only own a DS or you only have a PSP, we want you to be able to get that experience.

VideoGamer.com: Thanks for your time Greg.

Tiger Woods PGA Tour 09 is due out for Xbox 360, PS3, Wii, PS2 and PSP this autumn.

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