The future of football was unveiled today at the Leipzig Games Convention in Germany when Electronic Arts revealed the dynamic new engine that will debut in FIFA 07 on the Xbox 360 system and lead the franchise into the future.
Two years in development, the new engine is the single largest investment EA has ever made in the football business. The engine is poised to redefine the way sports videogames play and feel. A physics-based and data-driven technology, the engine delivers individuality of player movement, authentic athletic motion and an unprecedented level of responsiveness.
“Get ready for the first real next-gen football experience. FIFA 07 on Xbox 360 will deliver athletes that move as fluidly, as realistically and as intuitively as athletes in real life,” said Andrew Wilson, Senior Producer for FIFA 07 at EA. “This engine is the most sophisticated sports technology we’ve ever produced – it gives us the ability to transform football as it is played today but more importantly, it is a dynamic technology that promises to deliver new innovations for years to come.”
The new engine creates a decision-making layer in FIFA 07 that gives each individual player a ’football brain’ - a level of intelligence never before seen in a videogame. Player characteristics are now based on brand-new traits and twice the number of attributes, so no two players move in exactly the same way. Instead, they behave like the individual athletes we see gracing the pitch week-in, week-out.
FIFA 07 allows players to recognize their favorite athletes by the way they move. The human biomechanics of each athlete are taken into account and replicated in the game because the new engine is data-driven -- the player motion is driven by individual attributes, physical characteristics and for the first time, traits.
“The FIFA 07 engine unlocks ultra realistic player motion and delivers complete responsiveness due to its ability to branch animations and the real-time calculation of real human biomechanics. Essentially our software engineers are writing human decision-making code,” said Hugues Ricour, Producer for FIFA 07 on the Xbox 360.
FIFA 07 also introduces new ball physics, a central component to the feel and finesse of a football game. For the first time, the ball is alive with its own independent physics, resulting in truly unpredictable gameplay. Now any type of pass or shot is possible and goals will feel natural and unique.
Bringing the football experience beyond the videogame to truly deliver a complete media package for football fans is the online component to FIFA 07 which streams up-to-the-minute match results via real-time podcasts and news ticker. Nowhere else will football fans find such a comprehensive destination for football stats, information and real-world news.
With this new engine and licenses from the top leagues around the world, FIFA 07 on the Xbox 360 will create the most refined football gameplay experience to date.
“EA SPORTS is focused on gameplay and online innovations. We believe fans will feel the difference in FIFA 07 on Xbox 360 the first time they pick up the controller,” said Clive Downie, VP, Marketing, EA Europe.
Developed at EA Canada in Vancouver, B.C., the team is composed of football fans hailing from around the world. Drawn from France, England, Japan, Brazil, Russia Australia and beyond, the team may cross 10 different languages but they all speak “football”.
FIFA 07 on the Xbox 360 video game system from Microsoft will ship to stores this Fall in North America and Europe. The game is rated is rated “E” (Everyone) by the ESRB and 3+ by PEGI in Europe.
