http://revolution.ign.com/articles/703/703727p1.html
Interesting stuff in there, including certain confirmations!! Various excerpts here:
Interesting stuff in there, including certain confirmations!! Various excerpts here:
Normally, when you think of a franchise at EA, it's a group of teams that work on different platforms, if you will. What's different about this group is that it's a group of teams - collectively a larger group - that works on a single platform, which is Wii. They're working on very disparate titles - Madden being one and there are some others in development - that are, you know, aligned because of the console that they are on.
IGN Wii: So it's already working on multiple Wii projects?
John Schappert: Yes.
When you first play it, it's completely different. When you go to hike the ball, for instance, as opposed to pressing a button you simply jerk the controller up. Boom, you snap the ball. When you want to pass the ball, you gesture a throwing motion while holding the button down to the intended receiver. When you want to stiff-arm left or right, you juke with the nunchuck controller literally. When you want to kick, you gesture the kick motion.
You know, the buttons are all still being mapped out. It does use the trigger buttons right now. I don't know how much we'll have locked in for you at E3 because we are still working on the final button layout, but it does use the trigger buttons, and it does use the accelerometer in the nunchuck unit as well for juking.
IGN Wii: Are you going to be using any force-feedback when you're throwing the ball or when you're getting hit, or anything like that?
John Schappert: Yes, we are. I think it's a little early to talk about how.
IGN Wii: The Wii's controller lends itself to the ability to design and literally draw your own plays in Madden's playbook. Will the title feature this potentially awesome option?
John Schappert: You know, there is a lot of stuff that we're not yet unveiling. I think you're going to get a great glimpse of how Madden is going to play on Wii at E3 2006. But there is so much, like you're alluding to, that we can do with this wand - stuff that wouldn't be easy to do without the controller. All that stuff is right there and we're looking at it and saying, "What can we get done? What's going to be great and let's make sure everything we do will be great." We've got a lot of stuff that we're chewing on and we're not really telling everyone what we're doing just yet, but there are a lot of good ideas and that's certainly one of them.
IGN Wii: Obviously, Wii is not going to have the graphic horsepower of competing next generation consoles. Some developers have called it a "GameCube 1.5" Would you agree with that estimate and how are you maximizing on the graphic capabilities of the machine?
John Schappert: I don't think I would agree with the GameCube 1.5 estimate. I would say that I think the Wii should be evaluated by itself. I think it's a unique device and I think what makes it unique is the controller. As for graphics, we'll be showing Madden in 480p and 16x9 widescreen mode running at 60 frames per second. I think it looks great. I think it looks really good. It's also kind of hard for me to judge any of these machines before they're final. We get updates to all kinds of hardware quite often as the stuff is being revved and it's always getting better. I can tell you that we had a couple of guys from Tiburon come by and they hadn't gotten hands-on with the controller, aside from some demos. They thought Madden for Wii looked stunning and played great. So my answer is that it's a unique system and we're going to maximize our power for it. I think the games are going to look really good.
IGN Wii: Do you have an online mode planned for the Wii version of Madden?
John Schappert: You know, we've got lots of great online experience and Wii has Wi-Fi built in, so we are certainly planning for online.
IGN Wii: Is this going to be a Wii launch title later this year?
John Schappert: That is our goal.