EA Sports chief Peter Moore is no doubt proud of his team’s “Madden” and “Tiger Woods” games this year.

But when I asked him what the highlights and lowlights were for EA Sports this year during a quick sit-down interview in New York last week, the first positive thing that came to his mind was … a Korean version of “FIFA.”

Why?

“You hate to point to certain franchises, but I can’t overstate the importance of ‘FIFA,’” he told me while his PR handler was getting him a coffee. “Not only because, of course, we can sell ‘FIFA’ in just about any country in the world — particularly here in North America we’re selling very, very well. But the opportunities to iterate off our ‘FIFA’ franchise into a mid-session game [like] we gave you an example of with Asia [are] important.”

Moore was referring to a presentation he gave earlier in the day at the BMO Capital Markets Conference, during which he said that the “FIFA Online 2” game in South Korea has been a rousing success. The game is free to play on PC but, like many Asian multiplayer online PC games, offers players a bevy of cosmetic and gameplay items for small fees. Moore said that most people don’t buy any items, but those who do have bought an average of $28 of goods since the game’s launch.

It wasn’t just the Korean version of “FIFA” that has pleased Moore. It’s also the success EA has had in challenging Konami for soccer/football game dominance: “FIFA” vs. long-time global leader “Pro Evolution.”

“Three years ago, we were the second-place guy,” Moore said. “You may recall we took a big risk of jumping right in and spending on a new engine before Konami did…It’s one of those examples where we simply swallowed hard and said we have to go to a new engine. All of the grief, it costs you. And sometimes you don’t get it right the first time… I’m very proud of “FIFA.”

Thriving because of spirited competition? Some might see irony there, given that EA notoriously faces no formidable challengers in the making of American football games.

How could he say fitness games are the new music games?

However, EA will be facing tough competition next year in fitness games. The morning of Moore’s presentation in New York was also the morning EA announced “EA Sports Active,” a Wii-exclusive workout game designed to be used with specially packaged leg bands that can hold the Wii remote or nunchuk.

Moore maintains that the game is “complementary” to, rather than competitive with, Nintendo’s runaway hit “Wii Fit,” primarily because he characterizes “Wii Fit” as espousing a more balance-oriented fitness routine compared to EA’s emphasis on heart-pumping physicality. What was most striking in his presentation was Moore’s declaration that fitness games are the next big market, the new hot genre following the rise of the music game category exploding with “Guitar Hero” and “Rock Band.”

How could he say fitness games are the new music games? Moore feels it in his resume. He was a physical education teacher 30 years ago and then worked for nearly two decades at Reebok. Fitness, he said, is what people want.

“There are a huge number of people that need to work out, that want to work out, that recognize that they have some health challenges but are not comfortable, don’t like running, don’t want to go outside, are perhaps not comfortable in the gym and perhaps most importantly, don’t have time,” he said. “We looked at some stats: 61 percent of the U.S. population is overweight; 89 percent of all women in surveys say they need to lose weight. Whether they need to or not, their perception is they need to lose weight. We’re also looking at time compression. We’re looking at the cost of working out. Gym memberships and things of that nature. And then when you look at how many Wiis are embedded in homes around the world, and you do the correlation, it’s a strong business opportunity.”

But really, are these the new “Guitar Hero”s? “I’m bullish,” he said. “Do I have any basis for knowing what this market is? I really don’t. My only basis is having been involved with this market for 30 years in one way or the other. Seeing the innovation. We have driven this hard for the past 12 months.”

In our survey of highlights and trends, Moore also said he was proud of his division’s attempts to try new intellectual property this year, despite what he called “mixed results in some cases.”

So EA Sports sounds like a different division than the “Madden” factory some casual observers might take it to be. Is it a division headed in the right direction? Moore’s highlights, if nothing else, shows the track they’re running on.

Related Posts:
EA Announces Company’s Answer To ‘Wii Fit’
Busta Rhymes, Good Charlotte At Maddenpalooza [video]

If any cuts are made out of a gamer's holiday budget, it will be those titles that they could do without: games like Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe, which is an awesome game with great branding qualities. However, it simply does not stack up against the large list of AAA titles this holiday season.

Others include: Need for Speed Undercover (which has become a stale brand as of late), Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts, Spider-Man: Web of Shadows, Midnight Club: Los Angeles, and any other title that squeaks by with quality scores below 80 percent.

As consumers become more judicious with their discretionary income this holiday season, quality scores will likely have a bigger weight on a gamer's purchasing decision than in previous holidays.

And here's a word from your favorite analyst and mine, Michael Pachter!

I'd say that the worst positioned are Midnight Club: Los Angeles, Shaun White Snowboarding (the Wii version will do well, but is constrained by Wii Fit boards; the PS3 and 360 versions are not positioned well), Tomb Raider Underworld (a great franchise, but flying under the radar this holiday), and Animal Crossing: City Folk.

The last is a great franchise, but the Wii audience is dominated by the mass-market audience, and Animal Crossing is somewhat more hardcore than most Nintendo titles. I think that the game will do very well, but will likely be disappointing, relative to expectations.

Well that's ironic. The Wii finally sees a hardcore game and it'll bomb? I'd say it's a hardcore casual game, so it'd still sell like.. well, Wiis.

As we explained when we showed the last Left 4 Dead TV spot, Valve barely needs to do anything for this game to sell, since a co-op zombie FPS is a title that should practically sell itself. That said, it's fantastic to see Valve running TV commercials and having some real marketing weight behind its game.

Nick remarked to some of us yesterday about the big L4D billboards he was seeing, and how you never see that kind of high profile campaigning from Valve. Hopefully it pays off, because if any developer in this industry deserves a real spotlight, it's these guys.

As we explained when we showed the last Left 4 Dead TV spot, Valve barely needs to do anything for this game to sell, since a co-op zombie FPS is a title that should practically sell itself. That said, it's fantastic to see Valve running TV commercials and having some real marketing weight behind its game.

Nick remarked to some of us yesterday about the big L4D billboards he was seeing, and how you never see that kind of high profile campaigning from Valve. Hopefully it pays off, because if any developer in this industry deserves a real spotlight, it's these guys.

The Wii version has the suffix Road Trip, and the game is presented as such, with a pair of boarders invited by the titular Olympian to join him on his latest snowboarding adventure. It’s charmingly presented, with some enjoyably daft story sequences and a pleasing art style coupled with a terrific soundtrack. But it’s the control scheme where the game really shines.

While you can use the remote alone, the game’s much more immersive when controlled with the Wii Balance Board. As you might expect, you position the board lengthways, and guide your boarder using your back foot to turn and leaning forward with your front foot to accelerate. Bend your knees and straighten them to jump, and adjust your foot position in mid-air to spin. Pressing A or B on the remote at the same time executes tricks.

The latter part is the only real difficulty with the board controls which are otherwise really solid - it just seems you need to press down and shift your weight a little too much to execute any moves and the game doesn’t really allow you quite enough time to pull them off. But it seems that comes with time - I’m already getting higher scores than I was on my first few turns, so it appears it’s just  a case of getting over that particular difficulty hump.

I need to play more before I can review the game fairly, suffice to say that if you’ve finished SSX Blur and are looking for some more winter sports action, you really can’t go too far wrong with this.

Bookmark to:

Read up on Age of Conan's culture armors originally appeared on Massively on Mon, 17 Nov 2008 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments

Rare drops Battletoads, Killer Instinct gags in Banjo-Kazooie originally appeared on Joystiq on Mon, 17 Nov 2008 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

The Drum Kit:

Before i started playing Guitar Hero on the PS2 i used to be a drummer, was once in a drummer (as well as a back-up drummer) for a local school band - so ive always thought about playing drums on a game ever since the Guitar Hero franchise took off, well that dream came true with Rock Band, but was later shattered due to its clumsy reaction times, dodgey equipment and unrealisitc button layouts, so does this new Drum kit fair any better?

Well when i was putting the drum kit together everything felt awesome, nice and strong, and stands up without wobbling, as soon as i connected the symbol pads on i knew that this was going to be fun, as it actually looked like a proper drum kit. I started off with training and so far everything seemed ok and it felt more natural compared to rock bands drum kit, but then when i jumped to easy i noticed that my yellow cymbol pad wasn't responding as fast (or as good) as the orange cymbol, it still worked just not as good - so im a little disapointed with it, however it terms of how it feels, compared to the real thing its ALOT better than EA's Rock Band Drum kit - mainly because of the cymbols allow. For anyone starting out playing on the drum kits take all the training levels before doing a song, it does help get used to the controls and dont be annoyed if you miss a few notes to begin with.

Another thing id like to mention is that the Guitar Hero Drum Kit does infact work with Rock Band, and yet again it feels better and more natural, of course you wont use the "Orange Cymbol" but you use the rest as normal and it feels alot more natural and better than the original Rock Band Drumkit, Im guessing this drum kit will also work with the upcoming Rock Band 2 game, as Rock Band 2 is mainly a "track update" with new tracks but same graphics.

The Microphone:

The Microphone is exactly the same as the Rock Band microphone (or any other stage microphone) - its black, looks very realistic, its heavy and its fun to sing down, the only difference between the Rock Band microhpone and this is that it says Guitar Hero - other than that its the same thing.

Another difference, while playing the game, is that instead of screaming down the microhpone to activate star power (like you did in Rock Band), all you have to do now is clap on the microphone to activate it, i tried it using the Rock Band microhpone and i only got it to work once (however my Rock Band Microphone is abit dodgey), but its alot easier (and less annyoing) to clap rather than scream.

Speaking of being the same you can use your ROCK BAND microphone on Guitar Hero World tour (or vice versa) so in a sense both games (and controllers) are both interchangable, which is awesome unlike singstar where you have to buy the proper singstar microphones.

Anyway to sum up the Guitar Hero World Tour band pack package may seem expensive at £150, HOWEVER since you can use these nice comfatable controllers on other guitar hero and rock band games it isnt such a bad buy, because this equipment will last for a fair amount of time and it will save alot of money (in buying equipment for both set of games). So i say if your planning on getting into the Guitar Hero / Rock Band franchise, by the Guitar Hero Band Pack (which includes the game), then buy the Rock Band game on its own - lot easier and alot more fun.

To finish off heres a few pictures of me unboxing the guitar hero band pack, enjoy:

After all, we have heard such statements from various people across various sectors for so long now. Then we have those people from other sectors claiming that these statements are unfounded. So what is it, really?

So I just the article anyway – if only to find out what proof they have found now. This is what Reuters reported:

Adolescents who play violent video games may become increasingly aggressive over time, a new study of Japanese and U.S. teens suggests.

Researchers found that among three groups of 9- to 18-year-olds followed over several months, those who regularly played violent video games were more likely to get into more and more physical fights over time. The study is among the first to chart changes in gamers’ aggressive behavior over time, lending weight to evidence that violent video games can encourage violence in some kids. And it’s the first to show that the effects are seen across cultures, researchers report in the journal Pediatrics.

I have to emphasize the use of the word MAY. Grammatically speaking, this word is used to indicate a possibility. It does not really provide a solid link between the two factors being considered. To be honest, I am not surprised at all, are you?

• Video: PS3, Xbox 360, Wii get bricked - literally - for durability test