EA talks FIFA 13 Wii U
About grapics
“…they are on par (with 360/PS3) and there are a couple of features that we have been able to graphically enhance. It’s not going to be miles ahead, but two things we have improved just in terms of the fidelity and quality are the pitch. If you have a look at the pitch texture there’s a lot more detail in it and we’re working on that as we speak to hopefully improve it even further.
One of the common complaints is the crowd, and if you look at the crowd on the Wii U it’s double the resolution. We had limited resources in which to improve, so we wanted to make sure we got the biggest bang for the buck, if you will. Obviously the pitch is something you’re staring at like 90 percent of the time when you’re playing, so crowd and pitch were two areas we focused on.
With new hardware, one of the challenges is—unlike PS3 and 360, where you’ve got a game, it’s finished, it’s done, and you build on top of it next year—we don’t have a game. So we have to build that foundation, and just like building anything, you need a solid foundation that’s stable on which to build.”
Why some features were left out of the Wii U version.
“We have to take a point in time when [the game’s] stable and then bring it over and then all the work we’re building on top of it, so in terms of where this is at, it’s not [FIFA] 12, ’cause there’s a lot of enhancements from 12, it’s not 13—it’s kind of somewhere in between at a core level. …obviously, on top of that we’ve got all the new Wii U functionality, so there’s a lot in our game that’s not in 360 and PS3.
We wanted to make sure we got the most popular feature in [versions for] 360 and PS3. Either online or offline, the most popular feature in it is an online mode called Online Seasons, so that’s in the Wii U [version]. Some of the more advanced [modes] that took many years to kind of come onto 360 and PS3, things like Ultimate Team, they aren’t on it at launch, but the biggest one in terms of popularity is.”
About online play.
“A friends tab that’s always there in the front end on the [Wii U GamePad] so you can tap it, you’ve got a list of friends, (which pulls from) the friends list from the Wii U console. You can tap an invite to them, or you can tap a message to them. Obviously, touch screen messaging is much better than the 360 Live virtual keyboard where you’re moving it up and down. …we really want to connect friends and allow people to game with friends as easily as possible.”
