Don't Expect Too Much EA Sports Next-Gen at E3 - RaychelSnr's Blog

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Don't Expect Too Much EA Sports Next-Gen at E3 Stuck

Posted on June 7, 2013 at 11:50 AM.

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The calm before the storm has set in across the sports gaming landscape -- if you count an NBA 2K14 cover athlete announcement plus more information on PES being released yesterday as calm that is.

There is one group of people I do not envy in the least and that is the marketing team at EA Sports for the delicate balance they are going to have to be striking up over the next week.

Gamers want to see what next-gen sports gaming titles are going to be like, we've saw pre-rendered and most likely in-engine footage from several EA Sports titles already, but we have yet to see actual bonafide gameplay. Gamers are curious in a huge way as to what this whole Ignite Engine thing is truly bringing to the table, myself included.

In short: everyone wants to see next-gen gaming now.

On the other hand, EA Sports is going to sell A LOT more current gen titles -- and while the hype will be heavy on what next-gen games are bringing to the table, most of the company's consumer base will still exist on the popular over-the-hill hardware for another year or so. In fact, all of EA Sport's current-gen titles will probably be on the market before the Xbox One or PlayStation 4 are released.

What EA has to do in the next week is somehow find a balance where they show just enough of their next-gen offerings to excite and not to raise skepticism but at the same time keep most of the focus on the titles that'll all be launching before the next-gen offerings come to market.

It's likely the marketing pushes for the next ten titles from EA won't see a huge ramping up until the Fall, shortly before the new consoles launch but after most of the existing current-gen title inventory from EA has been released. With the next-gen consoles expected to launch in October sometime, this means that all of EA's current generation gaming offerings will be released by the time next-gen comes to market.

At E3, I'm expecting EA to show off some more of each game, with actual bonafide in-game footage and more details on what the Ignite Engine will truly do for our sports gaming experience. EA plans to offer limited hands on at E3 from a recent release, but no concrete details of what will be shown have been given. A huge data dump on what EA Sports has up their sleeve for the new generation of hardware is just not looking likely at this time as the company will likely try to strike that delicate balance between two hardware generations.

Expect most of the focus to forcibly try to remain on the current generation of sports games after the initial press conference, all of which will come to market before a single next-generation sports game does. Sometime after Madden and FIFA's launch on current gen, expect the details on our next-gen gaming experiences to truly begin to become public knowledge.

What are your expectations of EA Sports and what you expect to be shown off heading into E3?

Comments

# 1 sva91 @ Jun 7

Is this speculation on your part, or are you getting this from a source?

# 2 RaychelSnr @ Jun 7

Bit of both. EA has confirmed hands-on for Ignite titles -- but hasn't really been forthcoming on how much we're going to see. Speculation is that they're going to wait until after a lot of the marketing and hype is done for current gen so those games aren't completely overshadowed.

# 3 sparkdawg777 @ Jun 7

I'm not sure what to expect but I do think we will at least see actual gameplay footage and more info on the Ignite engine. However, with EA's new partnership with Microsoft, I think they will show more. Microsoft is going to be trying to sell us on Xbox One tomorrow and a huge help would be more info on next gen sports titles. We also have to think that most people just want the next gen info on Monday or at least that is what they are most excited about. Unless EA is not confident in what they have, I think it would be a missed opportunity to not give a good amount of info as possible on these games.

# 4 sparkdawg777 @ Jun 7

Edit above: not sure why I said tomorrow, I meant Monday.

# 5 SHAKYR @ Jun 7

EA is going to show much. It just in the nature of EA, especially their titles they don't have confidence in. EA's NBA Live is going to be a brief CGI of the game. I will be highly surprised to see actual gameplay. FIFA,Madden,Tiger Wood's Golf,and NHL are to be pushed the most. We are going to get bits and pieces of the UFC game because it's release is next year around this time.

# 6 SHAKYR @ Jun 7

[Correction] *isn't

# 7 Eski33 @ Jun 8

I was thinking the same thing. As a gamer I will hold out for next-gen Madden but there are people who want to make an educated decision. I don't think E3 will help gamers decide.