Tag Archives: tiger woods

EA’s said it’s going to stand by Tiger Woods, following the golfer issuing an apology to his family over his “transgressions”.

Woods was involved in car accident this week, after which he was taken to hospital and saw fit to go public about his nocturnal activities.

“Our strong relationship with Tiger for more than a decade remains unchanged,” EA told GI in a statement.

“We respect Tiger’s privacy, we wish him a fast recovery and we look forward to seeing him back on the golf course.”

More through there.

As games become services, EA COO John Pleasants has told Venturebeat, the standard model of how the general development industry operated will be thrown out the window. Probably into a “dumpster”.

“If you believe all games will eventually be services — as I do — then the idea of game teams that make a game, ship it, and then do something else goes away,” he said.

“They will now ship and day one begins when the customer gives feedback to the live service. The way you distribute will be different. The way you charge will be different. There will be more permutations in pricing. Merchandising will be much more important. Co-marketing will be much more important.

“You have to have persistent identification and entitlements for a user, no matter where they are or in what game they’re playing.”

EA is currently in the process of onlinifying Tiger Woods, the thin end of what will obviously be a rather large wedge.

There’s a good interview through there.

NPD analyst Anita Frazier confirmed last night that the Tiger Woods franchise has now generated more than $500 million in US sales.

“Tiger Woods video games have sold over half a billion $ at U.S. retail life-to-date,” said Frazier via Twitter.

The news comes in the wake of sobering US sales figures for May, which saw year-on-year revenue decline 23 percent to below $1 billion.

More on Gamespot.

The immediate growth opportunity for Wii exists in capturing the core gamer, Nintendo of America boss Reggie Fils-Aime has told CNET.

“The near-term opportunity is the consumer who owns an PS3 or an Xbox 360 and has been bad-mouthing Wii to their friends,” he said, talking at E3.

“We can reach that consumer with games like The Conduit or Tiger Woods with Wii Motion Plus.”

Fils-Aime said that players will go onto buy other first-party Nintendo games once they’d made the plunge.

“We think we win over the Halo audience with something like The Conduit, a multi-player, online, shooting experience, or Dead Space Extraction,” he added.

“And you know what? Once those people buy into Wii, they’ll go buy Mario Kart or Wii Fit Plus.”

Don’t worry, though. There’s plenty in that interview about going after non-gaming consumers. Read for the Lord.

SAI is reporting what could be a major shift in the way EA plans to operate in the next five years, saying it will start selling Tiger Woods “online for console downloads” this autumn.

Quoting a Wall Street Journal report:

DFC Intelligence estimates that revenue from downloaded or online games in the U.S. will nearly triple to $7.9 billion in 2013 from $2.9 billion in 2008. Sales of games for consoles, by contrast, are expected to increase by just 28% over the same period — though at a projected total of $24.3 billion.

It’s unclear whether or not Tiger Woods will be available on disc or will go download-only, but SAI describes the move as a “huge risk”.

Expect more details from E3 on Monday.

EA has released another video for Tiger Woods PGA Tour 10.

Loads of golf stuff in it, including talk about the tournament challenges, clips of Tiger chatting about his mindset during some of his most memorable moments and other, well, golf stuff.

The game’s out for PSP, PS2, PS3 and Xbox 360 this summer along with the Wii MotionPlus bundle.

Watch on.

More »

EA Sports’ Peter Moore has spoken to Sporting News about how his new sports games – coupled with Wii MotionPlus – are going to change the way gamers perceive the genre.

As an avid tennis player, Moore wanted people to get up off the couch to play Grand Slam Tennis, he said.

“What the Wii MotionPlus allows you to do is do a true authentic sports motion. When you swing the racket and you bring it back for an overhead lob or smash, then that is reflected,” he said.

“The amount of sensitivity that now brings allows true sports motion. It’s the same with golf. What you can do with Wii Motion Plus is truly bring it back, swing through the club and then it allows you to hit draws, fades and hooks.”

Moore also talked about how with current-gen consoles, even best-sellers like Tiger Woods did not offer a “full” form of interaction with Wii’s controls, with which the company has found developmentally difficult to attain total immersion.

“It’s been a little more difficult when you take a game like basketball and how do you bring that to life with the Wii Remote? When you take a game like hockey, it’s a little easier because you’ve got a stick in your hand,” he said.

“Tiger has been great. We’ve made some strides with Madden. I think you’ll find that the work we’re going to do in Tennis in particular, where it feels very natural and you’ve got this range of motion that recognizes your wrist turning that is going to allow to have some sensitivity in the racket”.

Moving on to EA Sports Active, Moore is not deterred by people who purchased Wii Fit. He feels that the exercises contained in that game were more appealing to balance and coordination enthusiasts — meaning more of an Eastern philosophy to exercise.

Western physical fitness is based more around cardio, and this is where he feels EA will succeed with Sports Active.

Finally, asked about the cover to EA Fight Night Round 4 featuring Ali and Tyson, he said that the cover was chosen because it would be a “quintessential” dream fight.

“Ali will hold him off for six or seven rebounds, keeping him at arm’s length and then go in for the kill and probably take a knockout by 10 or 11 — or in the old days, round 12 or 13,” he said.

EA has officially announced Tiger Woods PGA Tour 10.

Real-time weather will be reflected on every course, and a television broadcast style presentation with instantaneous updates will be included

ESPN’s Scott Van Pelt and the Golf Channel’s Kelly Tilghman will be the announcers.

Implementation of Wii MotionPlus includes the real-life golfing ability to draw and fade, and the ability to “open up your clubface” to take on that “dogleg or tap in that five-foot putt”.

Still coming to PSP, PS2, PS3 and Xbox 360, although most news of it swirls around the Wii version.

Get the press release after the break.

More »

EA COO John Pleasants said yesterday that two Tiger Woods games would be released this year, one a core platform version and one online-only effort.

Pleasants explained that between EA’s shifting focus to online entertainment and the popularity of purchasable Tiger Woods DLC, it was the only way to go.

“This year, we’re going to come out with a dedicated online Tiger product… that will be a leader in this move to become an online service company, as opposed to strictly a software shipment company”, he said.

Pleasants did not elaborate on whether the game would be free-to-play, micro-transaction based entirely or require a subscription fee.

EA’s been rebuked by the British Advertising Standards Agency for using Xbox 360 graphics in a Tiger Wood commercial for Wii.

The ad featured a Wiimote playing over 360 footage of the game.

Why? EA said the Wii version didn’t look good enough.

“They explained that Wii footage would not be of broadcast quality, and the originating agency had thought it preferable to use the Xbox footage, which was closer to broadcast definition, than to ‘up the resolution’ of Wii footage to broadcast quality,” said the ASA.

The ad will not be shown again.

For the full ASA ruling, hit this.