EA Sports' GM of Football Discusses Madden and the Next Generation of Consoles

[PVarck31]

GameInformer has posted an interview with EA Sports' General Manager of football, Cam Weber. In the interview they discuss some of the challenges in the Madden series. They also talk about how the team is preparing for the next generation of consoles.

Quote:

GI: It sounds like you'll be better prepared for the next-generation of systems and we won't see the early Madden games drop traditional features when they come out. Cam: I think what happened in the last generation – and I think it happened in a lot of places across our industry. It absolutely did here – a lot of people were trying to re-write everything all though that transition, and so the games lost some depth and they kind of started from scratch and had to build the depth again. I think with this generation, what we want to do is really clean house, get our technology in order, and make sure we really have this great platform and these different elements so we can take that with us so we don't lose any depth along the way when we transition to future hardware. GI: On the flipside, is there any danger that you're starting things for the next-generation too early, and that you'll actually be behind when the next-generation hits since you're starting things already? Cam: I think we're in so much better of a place today than we were in the last transition. Mainly because a lot of it is not a re-write, and the pieces that are re-writes, we're building a lot of those foundations now. These technologies that you're seeing are scaleable. Very scaleable.

[ch46647]

Hopefully this "new technology" is a physics engine. They keep mentioning a HUGE change starting with M13 but we havent seen anything HUGE yet. I think they will unveil a new physics engine on April 4th. However, rather then the physics engine effecting all areas of the game like movement, OL/DL play, locomotion, ball physics, etc. I think it will only effect tackling and impact with the ball carrier. I think this is the first stage of this implentation.

They will probably build on this for the next few years until all areas of the game are physics based. This makes the most logical sense as far as I can see... I am really holding out hope that this is the case

[Big FN Deal]

That's was a good read, don't really care much about the next consoles until they actually come out though. However, reading the part about all these things coming to fruition just in time for Madden 13, I am expecting a complete "living" Franchise mode with online capability, nothing less.

[rsamms]

That was a good read. From a software development perspective the new leadership has a solid plan in place. I like that they are focusing on building features that scale up rather than another disastrous “re-write”. Now we’ll have to wait and see if this plan is implemented well (Tiburon’s biggest weakness up to this point imo) in August.

[baller7345]

Quote: Originally Posted by Big FN Deal

That's was a good read, don't really care much about the next consoles until they actually come out though. However, reading the part about all these things coming to fruition just in time for Madden 13, I am expecting a complete "living" Franchise mode with online capability, nothing less.

The Wii U is coming out very soon. Just hope they don't give it the cartoony look since it can actually handle HD graphics being reportedly more than twice as powerful as the current systems. I'm actually looking forward to that one, partly because I've always loved nintendo (nostalgia and child hood memories) and partly because of how cool a tablet controller could be for Madden. Though I don't want to think about the price of the controller let alone the system.

[mrprice33]

Quote: Originally Posted by ch46647

Hopefully this "new technology" is a physics engine. They keep mentioning a HUGE change starting with M13 but we havent seen anything HUGE yet. I think they will unveil a new physics engine on April 4th. However, rather then the physics engine effecting all areas of the game like movement, OL/DL play, locomotion, ball physics, etc. I think it will only effect tackling and impact with the ball carrier. I think this is the first stage of this implentation. They will probably build on this for the next few years until all areas of the game are physics based. This makes the most logical sense as far as I can see... I am really holding out hope that this is the case

Don't do that to yourself.

[jpdavis82]

Quote: Originally Posted by mrprice33

Don't do that to yourself.

Yeah because that was a month ago

[jkra0512]

GI: It sounds like you'll be better prepared for the next-generation of systems and we won't see the early Madden games drop traditional features when they come out.

"Cam: I think what happened in the last generation – and I think it happened in a lot of places across our industry. It absolutely did here – a lot of people were trying to re-write everything all though that transition, and so the games lost some depth and they kind of started from scratch and had to build the depth again. I think with this generation, what we want to do is really clean house, get our technology in order, and make sure we really have this great platform and these different elements so we can take that with us so we don't lose any depth along the way when we transition to future hardware."

Sounds like he just contradicted himself here by saying, "hey yeah we tried to re-write everything going from the last-gen to this gen...but we're going to do a clean slate from this gen to next-gen....um, ok? So you're saying we're going to do this all over again, then? smh