Tiger Woods PGA Tour 09 Interview

When Nintendo announced its Wii MotionPlus add-on for the Wii Remote at E3, and then we got to play Wii Sports Resort using it hours later, we couldn’t help but imagine the best Star Wars game ever made. But, after we got back from sunny LA and took a trip to EA’s UK HQ for some hands on with its upcoming sports titles, heady thoughts of real time lightsabers melted away in favour of golf swings and putting. We’re talking, or course, about the Tiger Woods PGA Tour series and how the new MotionPlus add-on will revolutionise golf games. We tracked down associate producer Greg Rinaldi, EA Tiburon, to find out why he thinks Microsoft will follow suit, his thoughts on an EA console what a gyroscope means for your virtual golf swing.

VideoGamer.com: In the past PS3 owners have felt that they’ve got the short end of the stick when it comes to EA sports games. How does Tiger 09 compare on PS3 to the 360 this year?

Greg Rinaldi: There’s no difference this year. We took great pains to really work on PS3 and work with Sony. Visually, I’ve seen the two side by side and I couldn’t tell the difference. I know there were some issues last year on some of the titles, frame rates being different, but that’s not the case with Tiger Woods. Tiger has always been consistent on both platforms. It’s especially important with stuff like GamerNet, you know where we’re exploiting the power of the PlayStation Network, allowing users to be constantly online, constantly able to connect to GamerNet and their friends. I think, European gamers especially, will appreciate that. The fact that we’ve taken the time and really looked at PlayStation and 360.

VideoGamer.com: Why do you think there has been this problem in the past? I was speaking to David Rutter and he said it’s down to the fact that developers got hold of Xbox 360 before PS3.

GR: That’s the case, I think, with all of the developers. I know at Tiburon, we developed Madden 06 on 360 and it gave us a lot. The fact that Microsoft was first gave us a lot of insight into the hardware. We kind of hit the ground running on that. When the PS3 came out, for the first iteration of the titles that we were doing on PS3, I think we had a lot going on at the time. We still had to ship a 360 title and we had to get up to speed on the hardware for PS3. I think it’s taken us a cycle or two, but at this point we’re really at the same level on both and that’s what people need to see. I’d recommend picking up a Wii if you’re going to get two consoles. Pick up a PS3 or a 360 and then get a Wii. I think the Wii is a great platform.

VideoGamer.com: You guys are talking about the 1:1 motion on the swing in Tiger Woods 09 on Wii. Were you aware of Nintendo’s MotionPlus before it was announced at E3?

GR: No, we wish we were. It’s interesting. I’m a big fan of Nintendo. I have a lot of respect for those guys. I think they’ve done amazing things for the industry. If it wasn’t for Nintendo there would be no games industry. So I think the fact that they were able to take a risk that they took on something like the Wii was huge. They showed they weren’t willing to go with the flow. They showed that they were going to go in their own direction, and a lot of people doubted them, but they kinda… I think they prevailed in the end. Microsoft and Sony are holding their own, but Nintendo is showing, hey look, we’re still in the game, and we’re still the ones that are going to…

VideoGamer.com: Well, they’re winning.

GR: They are winning in a sense. I know in Europe I think they’re doing a lot better now. About the controller, I think the hardware now is a good balance. I think with Wii MotionPlus, I think what that’s going to allow us to do… with what we have now all that’s driving the motion is an accelerometer. From that we can get speed. We can’t get 3D positional data. That’s something that’s really important for a golf swing. Right now the swing is really based mainly on speed. Twisting the controller in 3D space, we can read some of that, but it’s a lot of software trickery for us to do that. We spent a lot of time on that because it’s not in the hardware. The current hardware is focused mainly on velocity and speed. So what the MotionPlus does is actually allow you to get that 3D positional data. Adding that to something like Tiger next year, which is something we’re 100% on board with, we’re hoping that people get the add-on, because it allows us to get as close to a realistic golf swing as possible on commercial hardware like this. I think we’ve done a lot with it this year. I think we’ve done a lot with being able to read exactly how fast you’re swinging the controller. What we can’t get is where you are in three dimensions of space, but that’s what the MotionPlus is going to do. It actually has a gyroscope in it, which is what they use in helicopters for positional information to figure out where the helicopter is oriented. So something as advanced as that in the Wii Remote is going to be huge for us.

It’s coming out after Tiger. I don’t know if Nintendo has given a ship date on it, but we haven’t been able to get our hands on the hardware anyway, so we haven’t been able to start development on it.

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.