Madden 07 on PS3 far behind?

This was the headline from Profootballtalk.com, a fairly popular NFL rumor website:

"Xbox 360 of PS3? For Madden fans, "X" marks the spot."

It's a link following article:

http://news.punchjump.com/article.php?id=2458

The article is titled, btw:

"E3: Madden NFL 07 fumbles on PS3"

Interesting, when you think about previous comments from EA stating that they aren't porting any games between the PS3 and X360 and actually have two different teams working on the two versions.

Any thoughts?
 
EA itself claimed at the same point in the development of the X360 version, they only had a single player to show to the press while the PS3 has 11 on 11 action going.
 
wco81 said:
EA itself claimed at the same point in the development of the X360 version, they only had a single player to show to the press while the PS3 has 11 on 11 action going.
That was at the same time that the engine was being developed.

i'm sure since they had a full year with it that it was easier to get to that point.

that said, it is still early in the PS3 dev cycle and not slated to come until 3 mos after the 2007 X360 version so there is still time to get it up to the same quality.
 
Yeah, they have about three months extra for launch. And I hope they bring back the QB Vision for online game for fiercer competition. Perhaps you could use the tilt function to make scanning easier for rookie. Go Bears, I don't care how many trick they give the offense, it's all about the D.

.Z
 
-NakedZ- said:
Yeah, they have about three months extra for launch. And I hope they bring back the QB Vision for online game for fiercer competition. Perhaps you could use the tilt function to make scanning easier for rookie. Go Bears, I don't care how many trick they give the offense, it's all about the D.

.Z
This is an excellent idea. I hope EA actually makes an effort this time. PEACE.
 
wco81 said:
EA itself claimed at the same point in the development of the X360 version, they only had a single player to show to the press while the PS3 has 11 on 11 action going.

After all their rubbish PR before the 360 launch (as an excuse to cut most of the game features to conveniently re-introduce/sell in subsequent years) I don't trust anything from EA's Tiberion guys. Their comments are not the sort to help gamers understand the dev process but to sell their product.
 
Question: Why would they be so far behind on the PS3 version when they've had dev kits far longer than most developers?
 
EA had both versions in their booth, one on each side of the main entrance. I spent about 15 minutes going back and forth between them to compare.

The 360 version was substantially superior.

- better framerate on 360 (though the framerate on both was not that great).
- PS3 version had circle shadows on the players, 360 had full soft shadowed players
- PS3 version missing DOF, blur
- PS3 version missing some lighting effects
- PS3 version had 2D sprite spectators, 360 had 3D spectators.

Obviously the PS3 team has a lot of work ahead of it to get on par with the 360 version.
 
Hardknock said:
Question: Why would they be so far behind on the PS3 version when they've had dev kits far longer than most developers?
Scheduling?
Is Madden '07 a launch title? that would in part explain why if it's not scheduled for 2006.
 
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Hardknock said:
Question: Why would they be so far behind on the PS3 version when they've had dev kits far longer than most developers?
There are two different teams working on madden 07; one for ps3, one for 360.
Only EA knows what could be going on between them, but obviously they are not on the same schedule.
 
rabidrabbit said:
Scheduling?
Is Madden '07 a launch title? that would in part explain why if it's not scheduled for 2006.

Everything I have read indicates it is a launch title. Typically Madden is released in August; EA had noted due to the extra dev time this year they may get in a few extra features not found in the 360 version (which definately sounds like a 2006 title to me). EA cannot wait until January to launch Madden because the NFL season is nearly over by then. And not having Madden on the PS3 in 2006 is no an option. Madden sells ~3-6M copies a year. It is in the top 10 in sales every year.

My theory: EA has had PS3 dev kits for a while. My thoughts are that the 360 version already has 1 "complete" stable build in the Madden 2006 (released in Nov 2005) version. (Yeah, I have a hard time calling that stripped featured game "complete") The PS3 has yet to progress to a complete, stable build. So all the stuff that is still in the works or has not been optimized for a final release has yet to be put in for a demo, whereas things like the crowd and effects that may be either buggy and/or too slow (because they have not been optimized for a release yet) were held out of the demo.

Lets hope the rumors about a new animation system are true and we see one in the next couple years. Currently EA is nothing to remove the impression they bought the NFL (and NCAA... and AFL) licenses to monopolize the lucritive market and then to proceed to milk it with stripped down, regurgitated products.
 
Hardknock said:
Question: Why would they be so far behind on the PS3 version when they've had dev kits far longer than most developers?

Probably because they've had final Xenon kits for far longer in comparison, not to mention the building blocks of the 360 engine from last year.

This should surprise anyone, it does present a very interesting development though, we should get to see a nice example of a cross-platform game designed to the strengths of both system.
 
I'm critical of EA and the way they develop these games. But I don't think their deficiencies are due to lack of money spent or effort by their staff. They have a huge overhead or a big team on Madden. The problem is that a lot of these people are working on multimedia, like custom music tracks and such rather than gameplay.

And as Lao-Yosh observed about the Tiger Woods demo, they're spending a fortune on face scanning and probably motion capture.

So maybe they've put their chips on such things rather than a new animation system. They probably want to emphasize the licensed athletes they can feature in their games. Hence, we may see an effort to get the faces of football players right rather than other aspects of the game.

Oh and it's a shame but looks like nobody is bringing up the target render they featured just a year ago at the 2005 NFL draft.
 
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