We are proud to present our interview with Sean O’Brien, Producer of NCAA March Madness 07.

Operation Sports: Why is the game being released so late and only on Xbox 360 and PS2?

Sean O’Brien: We wanted to ship NCAA March Madness at a more relevant time in the college basketball season.  Mid-January is right in the heart of conference play and is close to when college basketball interest in at it’s highest – February/March of each year when conference tournaments have started and the Road to the Final Four is about to get under way.  We’ve shipped in November the last few years and felt that the title gets lost in the holiday season with all of the big sports titles as well as other big licensed products or IP coming out at that time.  We shipped a downloadable demo for the 360 in November to give our consumers a taste of what to expect in 07.

Operation Sports: How would you compare the final version with the current demo available on the Marketplace? While the game looks good, the button commands seem to be lagging a bit.

Sean O’Brien: The demo that we released is no where near the quality of the final version.  We released that demo 2 full months before we finaled the game.  We wanted to give our consumers who were expecting NCAA March Madness in November, a taste of what was to come as well as an opportunity to be a part of our “Replay” advertising campaign.  In the final product, you’ll notice improvements in gameplay, performance, some visuals, in game audio and of course, you’ll have the opportunity to enjoy the new features and innovation that appear in Dynasty Mode.

Operation Sports: What improvements are we going to see in the Playstation 2 version over last year?

Sean O’Brien: This year's Playstation 2 version has several new features.  First and foremost, we've added a feature called the "Sixth Man" which ties the atmosphere within each college venue to gameplay replicating home court advantage and how difficult it is for teams to win on the road.  The homecourt advantage varies depending on the prestige of your program.  The higher your prestige, the greater homecourt advantage you'll have however with prestige comes expectations to win.  Visiting teams can take the homecourt advantage and use it in their favor if you allow them to gain momentum.  As the home team, it's all about maintaining momentum and riding the crowd to victory.

We've also added a feature called the "Go To Guy".  The "Go To Guy" can be one of three players (Senior Leader, Floor General or Star Player) from which the user can assign to be the Go To Guy.  To use this feature, the user must get momentum high enough in their favor which will then unlock the "Go To Guy" for activation.  To activate the "Go To Guy", get the ball into the hands of the "Go To Guy" and press L1 + R3. The "Go To Guy" will then have increased abilities for a short amount of time.  The length of time depends on how much you use the "Go To Guy" and how successful he his.  The more you use him, the longer he'll be activated.  It's important to note that the "Go To Guy" does not have to be used right away.  Once it's been unlocked, you can choose to use it strategically at any time.

To Dynasty Mode, we've added a feature called the "Sideline General" which allows users to coach their team to victory.  Call plays, switch up defenses, manage player substitutions…you call the shots then watch your team execute.

ESPN integration is also new to NCAA March Madness this year.  We'll have the ESPN Ticker and Radio as well as ESPN Motion.

Operation Sports: Other than the graphics and animations, what are the major differences between the current gen and next gen versions?

Sean O’Brien: We’ve had a great first year developing software for the XBOX 360.  You’re going to see, hear and play college basketball like never before.  To me, the most special thing about college basketball is the atmosphere.  There’s nothing quite like being at Allen Fieldhouse, Cameron Indoor Stadium, the Final Four or the amazing little venue called the Lahaina Civic Center, the annual home of the EA SPORTS Maui Invitational.  Nothing compares to the atmosphere seen, heard and felt in these arenas and the passion and traditions that the fans and students have for their school. 

All of the assets have been created specifically for the XBOX 360 – new arenas, uniforms, courts, animation, mascots, cheerleaders, crowds, student sections and bands.  We spent days upon days researching and gathering information to enable us to properly represent the traditions that make this sport so special.  We’ve innovated in a way that showcases these great environments and more importantly, allows them to have an impact the players on the court and allows you to interact with various parts of these environments, including the crowd, mascots, cheerleaders and the band all through a gameplay mechanic called Intensity Control.  The crowds are amazing with hundreds of authentic crowd chants, complete with synched audio and animation as well as Dick Vitale and Brad Nessler back calling the action. 

Back is the strategic gameplay seen in NCAA March Madness 06.  From the Lockdown Stick – which allows you to pressure your opponent and dictate his every move by playing aggressive, physical on-the-ball defense, trapping, forcing turnovers, denying passes and jumping into passing lanes, to the Floor General Playcalling system – the most sophisticated play calling system and authentic customizable playbooks to date.  You can run your school’s actual plays or create your own playbook to suit your team’s style and play the way you like to play the game. 

Also, we have a new gameplay mechanic called Intensity Control.  Each player is given a composure rating (this is new to 07).  Dozens of events (I.E. turnovers, made shots, fouls, rebounds, etc) during the course of a game will affect a player’s composure, either positively or negatively.  Remember, college basketball is played by kids that are in between the ages of 17 – 22.  We’re trying to replicate what it’s like for that 17 year old freshman who’s playing his first ACC conference game at Cameron Indoor Stadium at Duke versus that 5^th year senior playing it that same game.  For the most part, there will be quite a difference in how each of those two players prepare for the game and ultimately, now what to expect when they step on the floor and those things impact performance.

That being said, it wouldn’t be too much fun to play a video game where all of the freshmen are handicapped because they’re freshmen – it just doesn’t make sense.  We’ve created a gameplay mechanic called Intensity Control.  If I’m struggling on the floor, making a lot of bad plays, missing shots, fouling my opponent, etc, the composure of my players will be low which will cause them to make mistakes, not make as many shots, miss defensive assignments and be a little slower to get to the right spots on the floor, etc.  Essentially, they will be playing like they’re “rattled”.

Making positive plays on the floor helps fill up your Team Intensity meter which allows you to use your Intensity Control.  There are four options within your Intensity Control mechanic – pump up yourself, pump up your teammates, interact with the crowd and interact with your opponent.  By choosing to action one of these four options, composure is affected.  I’ll give you an example as it’s hard to explain without the software.  We’re playing each other and you are kicking my butt.  The composure of my players on the floor is low.  I have some of my Team Intensity meter filled up.  I press LB to bring up my Intensity Control and select “Teammates”.  Immediately you’ll see +’s above the heads of my players and the graphic illustrating each of their composures will change in a positive way.  This will in turn improve their performance.  Equate it to that senior leader calming his teammates down when they’re rattled or underperforming.  You can also do some fun things such as interacting with the crowd as the away player.  May not be a wise thing as the crowd will remember you throughout the rest of the game and boo you every time you touch the ball.

This is a very innovative gameplay mechanic that really speaks to the essence of the collegiate game.

I think you’re really going to enjoy our new School Pride feature in Dynasty Mode.  You can take your program from a mid-major to a powerhouse.  Win games and watch the students come out to see you play, build your own traditions and be rewarded with cheerleaders and a band at home games.  You can expand your facilities, upgrade your campus, and earn the support of your fans, alumni, and the administration.  We’ve also added more tournament content than ever before with the Pre and Post season NIT as well as the McDonalds High School all-American game.  Recruiting has gotten a complete overhaul with all-new recruiting and alumni challenges which help identify key players to sign to help build an NCAA Championship program.  After all, you can’t win without good players.

Operation Sports: Will lay-ups and dunks have separate button commands, like NBA Live?

Sean O’Brien: No. NCAA March Madness 07 stuck to a control scheme consisting of one button for jump shots(B) and a separate button for lay-ups(X) and dunks. This is the same control set up found in our current gen title and our 06 titles and uses contextual awareness and player ratings to determine whether to play a dunk or lay up animation and which one.

Operation Sports: What camera angles will be available? Can we zoom in on the broadcast angle?

Sean O’Brien: We looked at what worked and what didn’t in the past and in other sports games and improved our camera angles. We currently offer the user 6 unique camera angles –

Broadcast – “As seen on TV” ….perfect for Users who like what they see when they watch games on TV.

Classic - Old-school camera; this camera started as an homage to the game play camera used on the old NBA Live games I remember enjoying on the SNES, and ended up being one of the preferred cams of quite a number of people on the team.

Overhead - Very similar to our “Baseline” series of cameras from the current version of March Madness.

Sideline - Similar, in general, to the Broadcast camera, but closer to the court and considerably lower.

Sky Box - With this camera, we wanted to give the user the perspective of a fan watching the game from one of the corner (“corporate suites”) of the venue, but still place the camera close enough to the action so that the camera is playable.

Floor - A true north-south camera that puts the user the closer to the action that in any other camera.

Each camera allows the User a unique view of the game. You are able to adjust the Zoom and Pitch for each of the camera types to customize it to the most optimal setting for you to play the game.

Operation Sports: Can you start with and control multiple teams in a dynasty, like in NCAA Football. In previous versions of MM, you were limited to one team.

Sean O’Brien: You will only be able to control a single team. We understand this is something that some of our consumers wanted and will be looking to add a multi team Dynasty Mode in 08.

Operation Sports: Will it be easier to edit players? Is it similar to the NCAA Football series? Could you compare this years create/edit player with last year’s effort?

Sean O’Brien: Editing player will be very easy for the User. From a usability standpoint it will work like this –

-         Navigate to Edit Player via the My NCAA option on the Main Menu

-         Select which team you wish to edit using LT RT

-         Select which player you wish to edit using the A button.

-         You’ll then be able to edit the selected player in following areas –

o          Player Info – First/Last Name, Birth State, Primary Secondary Position, Jersey #, Handedness

o         Appearance – Head (including all features), Body Type, Height, Weight, Complexion

o         Accessories – Headbands, Upper and Lower Body

o         Attributes – Includes all ratings or the User can select from a ratings template

It’s that simple. I should also mention the User can edit every single player in the game. This allows them to customize the appearance and ratings of over 3000 players.

Operation Sports: Can we change the year of a player? This plays into the next question, because in years past, some teams would have senior walk-ons, but they would be missing freshman recruits expected to contribute, and you couldn't fully edit players to correct this.

Sean O’Brien: One of the benefits of a later ship date is that it allows us to update rosters to reflect such things as Freshmen Walk-Ons. We believe we’ve corrected this issue.

Operation Sports: Is there a court and uniform editor?

Sean O’Brien: We spent a good deal of time on our Create-A-Player and Edit Player features…they’re much improved from our current gen titles in that you can pretty much make a player look like anyone you want the customizable options are endless. We felt these were of primary importance entering our first year on next gen. Court and Uniform editors are on our list and we’ll be investigating this feature for 08.

Operation Sports: Is there an option when editing players, for shirts under the jerseys?

Sean O’Brien: We have many, many customizable options available in Edit Player but there isn’t an option to add a shirt under a jersey this year.

Operation Sports: Has the roster size been increased to a more accurate number like 15, so that players such as UCLA's Luc Richard Mbah a Moute, a lowly regarded recruit coming in last year, won't be left off the roster this year?

Sean O’Brien: The current Roster size is 12….again our unique ship date allows to add important recruits or walk-ons. All impact recruits should be represented. Increasing the roster size is something that we’re looking at for next year.

Operation Sports: Is Create-A-Team back, with all the options from NCAA Football? If it's back, how many can you create? Have you added things like Create-A-Conference or Create-A-Recruit during a dynasty?

Sean O’Brien: This being our first year on a next gen console we felt it was necessary to concentrate on our core ‘Create-A-Features like Create-A-Player and Edit Player. They’re vastly improved from current gen and we feel users will appreciate the amount of customizable options. Create-A-Team is a cool feature but wasn’t in our scope this year. As with all features if our Users indicate this is a must have feature we’ll investigate getting it into the game. The same can be said with Create-A-Conference…..although I should mention the User can transfer conferences within Dynasty Mode based off of their team’s performance.

Operation Sports: With the Preseason and Postseason NIT tournaments in the game, will other In-Season tournaments be in the game? (Ex. Great Alaska Shootout or Paradise Jam).

Sean O’Brien: Yes, we offer the EA SPORTS Maui Invitational during the Pre Season, the NIT Season Tip Off.  We also offer the McDonalds High School All-American game for high profile recruits in the Off Season of Dynasty Mode - complete with authentic uniforms and court art.

Operation Sports: Can we create early season tournaments for play during the dynasty? If so, will the option exist to place multiple ones in for the season?

Sean O’Brien: With the addition of the EA SPORTS Maui Invitational and the NIT Season Tip Off, we provide consumers with the two biggest pre season tournaments in college basketball. The addition of unique awards and records for each tournament gives them a depth and reward hard to achieve in custom tournaments. That said we’ll look at adding Custom Tournaments akin to what is found in our current gen title back in for the 08.

Operation Sports: Has the glitch where player stats and rating drops in the second year of playing been corrected?

Sean O’Brien: Absolutely! This problem was introduced very late in the product cycle last year and we didn’t catch it. We apologize to our users for having to endure it….we were not happy about it. It was immediately obvious from reading OS forums after the game shipped our user have found this to be a big issue so we fixed it right away.

Operation Sports: Are correct schedules in? This has been a major problem in the past, with teams playing back-to-back games against conference opponents in season.

Sean O’Brien: We fixed the back to back game issue this should no longer occur in the 07 next gen title.

Operation Sports: Will team and player rankings be tweaked with some of the play we've seen early on? In particular, returning players that have been much better than expected.

Sean O’Brien: Absolutely, there were numerous updates to our rosters and ratings based on changes in the college hoops landscape right up until we shipped. Our DB expert spends hours and days making update after update.  We also worked with Doug Gottlieb at ESPN.  He helped provide some insight into the strengths and weaknesses of the key incoming freshmen, as well as working with us to put together a top 25.  Another way this new partnership with ESPN will be beneficial moving forward.

Operation Sports: Does this game have an auto-save and auto-load function?

Sean O’Brien: Yes, we have an auto-save feature. If you’re familiar with any of our next gen titles such as FIFA or NHL you’ll find our Save/Load system to function in a similar, streamlined manner.

Operation Sports: Will the "Classic" and "All-Time" historical teams be included?

Sean O’Brien: The College Classics game mode will not be in the 360 version of the game, but remains in the PS2 version.  We wanted to focus on the 325 schools that are in the game as well as the primary game modes such as Dynasty Mode and of course gameplay in our first year on a next-gen console.

Operation Sports: Are full intra-squad 5-on-5 practices available, where you can practice offensive and defensive plays? This has been a much needed feature for years as shooting around by your self won't help much in a game of 5-on-5 hoops.

Sean O’Brien: We agree with OS members on this requirement and while we focused all of efforts to make on our 5 On 5 game play the best we could for 07 we’re in the midst of designing features like this for our 08 iteration.

Operation Sports: Can you scrimmage against other teams?

Sean O’Brien: No, a practice mode was not in the cards for the 07 but as mentioned before we pay close attention to user feed back on OS and elsewhere and if our users feel this is a must have feature we’ll take the steps required to add it to future versions of NCAA March Madness.

Operation Sports: Does the game feature a weekly highlight show, using the GameDay crew of Rece Davis, Jay Bilas, Doug Gotlieb, or is that in the cards next year?

Sean O’Brien: We don’t have a weekly highlight show but have added a Selection Sunday Show featuring Dick Vitale and Brad Nessler. The Selection Sunday Show provides in depth analysis of the teams selected to the NCAA Tournament and NIT.  

Operation Sports: Will the mid-majors and small schools have accurate floors and licensed jerseys? 

Sean O’Brien: Yes, we made the court floors and jerseys as authentic as we could given the reference we had for every school in Division 1 college hoops. In total that equates to close to 700 authentic jerseys, 350 court floors, arenas, mascots, cheerleaders, bands with 3D instruments, and student sections, complete with traditions. The accuracy and volume of our art assets is staggering. We really believe our users will appreciate the effort involved when the step onto the court…..so to speak.

Operation Sports: We would like to thank you for your time with this interview, is there anything else you would like to add?

Sean O’Brien: If consumers are wondering what they can expect from NCAA March Madness 07 on the XBOX 360 I think it would be important to note that while this is our first iteration on a next gen console we didn’t simply “port” our current gen offering with amped up graphics and animations. The game looks great, for sure, but we added numerous brand new features and innovation to both gameplay and Dynasty Mode. Some of these features such as Intensity Control, the arena detail and atmosphere that we’ve created or our ESPN integration couldn’t have been fully realized on current gen console. I think it adds up to a great combination of feature depth and breadth the user will truly enjoy.

I’d like to also mention that the NCAA March Madness development team plays close attention to what users have to say about our game in the forums…..whether it be Operation Sports or elsewhere. If you have suggestions, ideas, or complaints….go ahead and let us know…….we’re listening.

Thanks for giving me the opportunity to talk about NCAA March Madness 07 - our team appreciates it.