ea-sports posts

EA Sports announced a few days ago their plans to release Tiger Woods PGA Tour Online, a web browser-based for the PC and Mac. This week EA revealed during their EA 2009 press conference that their web-based gaming support will be extended to Madden NFL 10 . . . kind of.

No, EA Sports isn't bringing the pro football game back to the PC platform but it is launching what they are calling the Madden NFL 10 Online Franchise. While the game is still on consoles you can use your web browser to do things like "live drafts, player transactions, league message board" and more. Let's hope this is just a stepping stone to bringing a real playable version of Madden to the PC.

Electronic Arts' sports head Peter Moore has been hinting that the future of their sports games on the PC platform is online. Now EA has announced the first major move in that direction, revealing that EA Sports plans to launch an online version of their Tiger Woods PGA golf game to web browsers.

Tiger Woods PGA Tour Online will be compatible with both PC and Mac browsers and will feature a number of courses and a roster of PGA tournaments. EA plans to add new content and features on a regular basis following its launch this fall. Pricing has yet to be announced but EA is planning a "multi-tiered" subscription service. The game's official web site is already taking sign-ups to beta test the game.

The head of Electronic Arts' huge sports division is not a popular figure with PC gaming sports fans. In 2008 Peter Moore decided not to publish PC versions of most of their sports games, including the Madden NFL series. It looks like that will be the case for 2009 as well.

However it's been over a year since Moore made the decision to cut down their PC game support and yet he still doesn't seem to have a handle on how to release a sports title for PC gamers. In a new chat over at the Edge Online web site, Moore states, "[With the PC platform] we've got to find the right business model for us going forward. We really want to keep sports an important part of the portfolio that's available to PC gamers, but the business model right now, shipping a physical disc for the PC, simply isn't working for us." When asked if he might consider launching an EA Sports MMO game he replied, "We think about it all the time. We look at how we could bring an MMO type experience to sports or sports to an MMO experience" Hopefully Moore will be able to announce some kind of PC sports franchise plan soon.

Last year, Electronic Arts decided to cut most of its PC versions of their many EA Sports games, including the latest version of the popular Madden NFL franchise. Only the NHL and FIFA games had PC ports last year. Well PC football fans who were hoping EA might reverse itself with this year's Madden just got hit with some bad news. The just announced Madden NFL 10 (for 2010) did not have the PC among its many different platforms it will appear on this year. Big Download emailed EA Sports for comment and a PR rep confirmed the news saying, "We have no plans to release Madden NFL 10 on the PC this year. We continue to explore ideas to revitalize the PC for sports games and the types of games that are best suited to the platform, and this remains our goal for the Madden NFL franchise. "

Meanwhile there are rumors that EA Sports could be abandoning the PC port for their NHL game this year. According to a post on the message boards at the the Hockey Downloads web site the writer claims he has gotten world from EA's NHL producer that a PC port won't be made. We consider this to be a rumor since EA has not officially confirmed this news. EA Sports' PR rep told us tonight, "We have no other announcements regarding our other franchises at this time."

It's always good to know that even the head of one of the industry's biggest game franchises can be a fan of a small independent title. In this case the big exec is Peter Moore, the current head of EA Sports. And the game is World of Goo, the acclaimed downloadable puzzle title from 2D Boy.

Of course the game was made by former Electronic Arts team members and Moore states, "There's a lot to learn from the EA alumni who started 2D Boy and built something as creative and unique as World of Goo, with such a small team and little money." Moore believes that EA Sports can learn something from the innovation that World of Goo brought to games and EA Sports is planning to offer a number of small downloadable games for consoles. And what about the PC which EA Sports almost abandoned in 2008? Moore states, " I also know many of you await our plans on PC this year, and I think there are learnings here as well, beyond just downloads for console gamers, for going online to deliver compelling experiences to the PC community as well."

The current economic hardships are continuing to impact the game industry. Today IGN is reporting through unnamed sources that 30 team members of Sega of America have been laid off today. There's no word on what specific people or positions were affected and also no word if the layoffs will affect the releases of Sega's future games.

Also, Gamasutra is reporting that EA's Tiburon studio, home of many of their EA Sports games, has also been affected by layoffs although there is no word from that media outlet exactly how many staffers have been let go. EA has not yet commented on specific layoffs at their various studios, saying only they have plans to cut 10 percent of their workforce.

Update: Edge Online has confirmed with a Sega spokesperson that the layoffs did indeed occur but would not offer more details.

Electronic Arts has been feeling the economic pinch this year as profits are down for the large game publisher. Now our sister site GameDaily is reporting that a planned new EA development studio in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada is now on hold, most likely because of its current financial troubles.

EA already has two dev studios in the Vancouver area; one developed the FIFA soccer games (one of the few EA Sports titles still being made for the PC) while the other, EA Black Box, is home to the Need for Speed series. The new studio was planned to be a 20,000 square foot facility but the office space that was going to be used has now been given to another tenant.

This is the demo for FIFA Manager 09, the game that give you control over multinational football clubs.

"EA SPORTS FIFA MANAGER 09 gives football fans full control over the management of their clubs. Whether founding a club, becoming a national coach, or finally leading their favourite club to international glory, all options are open to players in the EA SPORTS football management simulation for PC. The game contains all areas of club management, from signing new players to training to extending stadiums."

Download the FIFA Manager 09 Demo (875 MB)

This patch applies to the European release of FIFA 09 and is required for online play.

Download FIFA 09 EU Patch #1 (2.6 MB)

Perhaps as a response to some of the comments made about the PC version of FIFA 09's graphics compared to the console version, EA Sports released this video. In it, the developers talk about the features that make the PC version unique to the platform and recount their favorite FIFA memories.

Download the HD FIFA 2009 PC Features Video (48 MB)
Download the FIFA 2009 Demo (1 GB)