EA Sports president Peter Moore has told VideoGamer.com that he believes sports will play a large role in the early support for both Microsoft's Natal and Sony's PS3 motion controller. However, much of this will be through fun mini-games as we have seen with the Wii.
Asked if the publisher's market-leading FIFA franchise could incorporate Natal or Sony's motion wand, Moore said:
"Well I'm not sure that simply having a, let's say Natal from Microsoft, having a Natal version of FIFA is arguably the right thing to do. Are there some cool mini-games you can do as a Natal or motion controller from Sony, where you actually put the controller down maybe, you get up off the couch, and then there's a penalty competition? And maybe, and this is right off the top of my head, maybe, there's a penalty, instead of using the controller, you have to take the penalty?"
He continued: "The challenge is how do I interact inside that screen? How do I bring to life the ball outside of the screen? I think the simplest thing to do is maybe just take a penalty. Now do I know how to do that? Do I write code? No."
What Moore does expect to see is bite-sized experiences, similar to what happened with the Wii.
"I don't believe you're going to see early on a full game where you and I can play one on one. I don't think that's going to happen," said Moore. "It's going to be, as we saw with Wii, sports is going to play an interesting role, but it's going to be relatively bite-size types of games that are instantly fun."
Moore concluded: "It's going to be very interesting to see what develops. And we'll be there. Certainly EA Sports needs to play a role in gesture and motion controllers. We'll obviously be there."
To see what else Moore had to say head over to our gamescom 2009 interview in full.
How do you see motion control being worked into some of EA Sports' franchises? Share your thoughts in the comments section below.
User Comments
kamoflage
Personally I would like to see motion control take a back seat for games like FIFA. Sure you could use motion control for penalties and thow-ins but it has to be incorporated so as not to spoil the flow of the game. I would rather see the motion controls reduced to changing team tactics - waving your team forward for a last minute corner when you are a goal down or pulling them back to defend if you are a goal up.
joe7@ rbevanx
rbevanx
Karlius@ Foliage
Foliage
For example:
- The lag from Natal will need to be fixed.
- Natal will need a physical controller at some point, with buttons or else they are extremely limiting themselves, since developers need buttons in any game that will be taken seriously.
- Sony's scontroller is more impressive when it comes to accuracy, hand actions are accurate and very precise. Natal is inferior in hand controls. However Sony will be dead in the water when it comes to foot accuracy. Since they only have a 2d camera at the moment capturing all other body parts besides the hands. They have been creative with headtracking, let's hope they can solve this problem as well.
- With that said, foot tracking is good for walking, but in a game like soccer (as any fan will tell you) it is pointless without an actual ball to kick. Kicking air might be fine for the wii, but not the 360/PS3.
- With Natal suffering from lag, lack of precision, and playing with "air" they need to seriously adjust or be faced with being inferior to even the Wiis offering.
- Sony has backed their current camera in this next step (not a bad move since Microsoft has essentially ditched their camera/customers), however they will need to get creative with body tracking. Let's hope that the much superior hand tracking and actual controller is enough to offset some less accurate body tracking. From the looks of their e3 showing, this seems like a non-issue.
- Can Microsoft answer the question that is on all our minds, what does the bottom of an avatars shoe look like? Their specs would suggest better body tracking, but their game of catchup with technology Sony has been sporting since the PS2 might be too little too late.
renegade
Mr_Ninjutsu
Karlius
El-Dev@ Mr_Ninjutsu
Mr_Ninjutsu
El-Dev
Karlius
Mr_Ninjutsu
I dont see it working for sony's motion control either.