EA Sports MMA in Development

by pastapadre
Posted June 1st, 2009 at 6:43 pm

easportsmma

Long rumored and now confirmed with the announcement at the EA press conference, EA Sports MMA is in development aiming for a release next year. The question becomes how will they produce a game for a sport that is so strongly identified with UFC? A license that is locked into an exclusive and multi-year deal with THQ. It’ll be interesting to see how they go about that. While the sport is growing most casual fans simply identify UFC as MMA.

One thing that does make sense is for EA to do alternating years with their fighting titles. One year brings MMA with the following year offering Fight Night. That would allow them to advance each title with extra development time while not cutting into sales or hype.

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  • boon
    And no face buttons for anything
  • boon
    Here are the back of the box features.
    2010 - New features:
    Replays
    Everyone is rated 90+
    A guy with 99 speed and 50 speed, who cares, you can't tell the difference anyways.
    Automatic backwards skating...err walking
    Curve shot takedowns! Impossible to stop
    Knockout guys in two shots. Fighting engine courtesy of NHL09
    Last minute AI comeback. Get your robo-knockout here!
    Save game
    No online leagues
    Featuring over 40 fighters you've never heard of

    2011 - Replays removed
    Vision cone fighting
    Online leagues but they don't work
    Save game removed

    2012 - New feature: replays
    First person fighting
    Signature punchs
    Slowed down gameplay
    Who uses online leagues?
  • MKat
    They will take the Fight Night approach and fill it up with a lot of legends which would be alright by me. Gracie, Shamrock, Savern, Frye, Butterbean, Tank Abbott. Wouldn't be surprised if they filled it up with former wrestlers who are trying their hand at MMA like Lashley and Sean O'Haire so they can drag in the casual MMA fan.
  • kq7
    If they put Ronaldo Jacare Souza in this game I'll buy it just so I can own everybody with Jacare
  • boon
    I've never heard of any of those guys
  • and the fact you've never heard of Randy Couture (former UFC), Shamrock (former UFC) or Fedor tells me that you're a fair weather MMA bandwagon fan.
  • boon
    Couture is 50
    Fedor is fat
    Shamrock is WWF, and 50

    They would all be rated 10's in UFC's game
  • MMA is more than UFC.
  • Probably Affliction. This should be interesting. I'm guessing EA is flexing their muscle to try and win over UFC's contract when it's up. Competition is always a good thing, and that just means THQ will up the ante on their next release.
  • You beat me to it. I think this is a direct move to take over UFC in a couple of years.

    Money aside, UFC would also benefit from the greater exposure with EA
  • Whether you like EA or you don't, they are smart when it comes to business. The lack of UFC affiliation means that they have something planned that the current UFC game doesn't offer that will appeal to gamers. I'm going to make assumptions, but there will be online leagues (with belts) , create videos (that's a given with EA), and probably have superior graphics, customization. I just don't see EA coming into this genre without them having something up their sleeves. It's like when Skate first came out. At first people thought EA was foolish for entering a field dominated by TH. Now Skate is the dominate skating game out there and forced TH to change their baseline.

    There are other fighters outside of UFC now that I really think about it...Strikeforce, Affliction and or Dream/Sengoku...so I believe there can be a large roster of fighters to add to the realism of EA MMA. If you can bring Fight Night's Physics/Graphics and presentation...then we might have something nice here. Gina Carano is also very popular in MMA, possibly bringing her and a woman's division could be an interesting move.



    Some fighters not in the UFC.

    Fedor
    Gina Carano
    Babalu
    Mayhem Miller
    Eddie Alvarez
    Barnett
    Lil Nog
    Brett Rogers
    Kid Yamamoto
    King Mo Lawal
    Kevin Randleman
    Gilbert Melendez
    Josh Thompson
    Jeff Monson
    Bob Sapp
    Aoki
    Alistair Overeem
    Nick Diaz
    Robbie Lawlor
    Jake Shields
    Randy Couture
    Bobby Lashley
    Cung Le
    Frank Shamrock
    Ken Shamrock
    Phil Baroni
    Mousasi
  • You beat me too it. I think this is a direct move to take over UFC in a couple of years.

    Money aside, UFC would also benefit from the greater exposure with EA
  • Mike
    wec is owned by ufc isnt it? so doubtful it'll probably be affliction
  • william30
    Alright thanks i got so excited when i got up to find team builder was live haha... keep up the great blogs
  • Boucher
    Hopefully this game deals with the hardcore, because only the hardcore fans would know about bodog and the wec and such
  • NoFro904
    hmm intersting
    idk how this is gonna work seeing that ufc has that deal with THQ


    o yea first!!!
    ithink
  • william30
    haha nope 1st is mine
  • william30
    Pasta did you get to see the presentation and stuff of NCAA 10??
  • I'll get time with NCAA tomorrow. All they did for NCAA at the press conference was announce Teambuilder and how it had gone live which we already knew about.
  • william30
    PASTA!!! I BEG YOU TO DO ME A FAVOR!!! PLEASE PLEASE TRY AND FIND OUT THE RELEASE DATE FOR THE NCAA 10 DEMO.... PLLLLLLLEEEEEEAAAAASSSSSSEEEEE
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