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EA appear to be looking into a new TV show venture that could bring ‘The Sims’ to our TV screens. With the success of reality TV shows like Big Brother, the giant publishing firm is considering a new show where viewers control the actions of on-screen characters.
Jan Bolz, vice president of marketing and sales for EA Europe, had this to say about the idea: “One idea could be that you’re controlling a family, telling them when to go to the kitchen and when to go to the bedroom, and with this mechanism you have gamers all over the world ‘playing the show’.”
The show appears to be a long way from hitting our screens, but EA has conformed that talks are underway with several TV production companies. What is unclear is whether or not the show would rely on real humans or take advantage of new technology to power a virtual reality TV show.
Speaking about next generation hardware and its possibilities Rory Armes, managing director of EA’s UK studio, had this to say, possibly hinting at the show using technology over real people: It’s the subtleties, the eyes, the mouth — 5,000 polygons doesn’t really sell the emotion. With PS3 and XBox 2, we can go on the main character with 30,000-50,000 polygons. With that increased firepower, the ‘Finding Nemo’ video game looks just like the movie, but in real time.”
With ‘The Sims’ having such massive appeal to both men and women (with women actually accounting for 60% of the game’s sales), the proposed TV show could do big things for EA, and with 36 million units of the game sold to date, the Sims brand could hardly be bettered for potential TV material.
Hopefully more details on the TV Show will be revealed in the coming months.
