In an interview with Kotaku, the head of EA disclosed some of his companyâs experience and ideas involving Microsoft and Sonyâs motion tech, predicting that half of the market will eventually go to motion-control games.
On the final morning of E3, I sat at a closed bar with EA CEO John Riccitiello and learned that the renowned publisher of Madden, Rock Band and dozens of other hits had a shot at being the creator of Microsoftâs Project Natal controller-free motion-gaming system.
But the Xbox 360-maker beat EA to it.
âWe almost invested to create a platform extension like that for some of the games weâre working on,â Riccitiello said. âWeâre very pleased, frankly, that it showed up at Microsoft, because Iâd rather them pay for that. They can leverage it better, and we can build software. But I felt the market wanted that technology and Iâm glad itâs coming.â
Riccitiello was at ease during our interview with discussing both Natal and Sonyâs still-unnamed motion controller that also had its debut at E3 2009. Both projects involve technology EA has already touched.
Regarding Natal: âWe were looking at a camera system. In fact we were looking at the camera system they ended up going with. That technologyâs pretty compelling. I donât think it applies to all genres of games. We thought packing it with some things weâre working on in our studios, maybe sports and music, made a lot of sense.â
Regarding the Sony tech, Riccitiello said, âIâve been playing with that and it is cool. And we saw that two years ago. In fact, I think we introduced Sony to it.â
Riccitiello, who is proud of EAâs aggressive support of the Wii motion controller â and the MotionPlus add-on that debuts this week and is packaged with, not a Nintendo game but an EA one â is a believer in motion control. He embraces it but recognizes its limits.
âMy guess is that where this ends up is: motion controllers end up with half the market. And the other half still ends up with a more traditional game controller.â
Traditional controllers wonât become extinct, he said. âI really donât know if youâre going to want to play FIFA with a motion control device. First off, a 75-minute session would be frigging tiring, jumping all over the place. And frankly the traditional controller is pretty fun. I donât know where, for example, shooters end up, but the camera and/or infra-red reception doesnât give you the precision for a shooter that you get out of a traditional controller. While you can certainly look at Natal and say, yes I can have a gun and do this with it, I donât know that thatâs necessarily how I want to play.â
The EA CEO characterizes the Sony and Microsoft technologies as âgood stuff,â devices that further the Nintendo Wiiâs emphasis on game accessibility and the joy of motion-based play.
What Riccitiello sees coming out of this isnât just a market half-full of motion games and half of traditional-controller games. He sees a new platform split resulting from the style of motion controllers each of the big three console-makers now boast:
âThe industry, up until the Wii was introduced, was [such] that all genres worked on all platforms in sort of equal balance. There wasnât much difference. My suspicion is that what weâre going to find is that different platforms will work better or worse â will get marketed better or worse â for a particular enterprise.
âI could make an argument that fitness will do really well for Natal.
âI could make an argument that 3D movement in space looks like it might be best done on the new Sony system. That brings to mind any number of interesting duck and cover game mechanics that could be fun. For what itâs worth Iâm not sure that anybody wants to play Splinter Cell and actually duck-and-cover as much as is involved in Splinter Cell, because itâd be like doing 700 squats.â
Riccitiello said EA is working with dev kits and ready to move ahead. Specifically of the familiar Natal tech, he said, âWeâve been working on this kind of stuff before Microsoft had a commitment to this kind of stuff⊠weâre relatively far down the path of understanding how the technology works.â
EAâs ready for a lot more motion gaming, recognizing its opportunities and where to draw the line.
