EA Sports has made two announcements relating to Fight Night Round 4. The first is that the price of the game is being dropped to $39.99 while the second relates to the next downloadable content that will be arriving next month.

In addition to including Bernard Hopkins, Sonny Liston and Evander Holyfield as playable boxers, the DLC pack will also include two all-new game modes. The first, Old School Rules brings a new take to the traditional boxing experience, while the second, Ring Rivalries, allows you to re-create some of the greatest match ups in boxing history.

The DLC will go for 800 MS points on the 360 or the equivalent $10 on the PS3. No date has been set for the release other than it coming in December and full details on the new game modes have not yet been made available.

The NCAA Football series has shown minimal growth on the 360 even as the user base has increased over the last couple years, though on the PS3 side it has been showing marginal improvement. Either way it hasn’t been an encouraging pattern as it almost seems as though sales of a college football game have peaked with them presenting very little interest to anyone outside of that group that already gets it. Certainly the total number of sales has declined as the PS2 has dropped off more than the 360 and PS3 are picking up on a yearly basis.

Last year NCAA Football 09 sold 397,600 for the 360 and 242,500 for the PS3 in the first month. Compared to 08 that was practically an identical number for the 360 while the PS3 got boost of 86,000 units.

NCAA Football 10 came in with a lack of hype and excitement but an interesting pre-release tactic offering up the Teambuilder website and ability to create teams and import them to the game. I was curious how that could affect the sales with the thinking that people who put time into creating teams would certainly end up purchasing the game. But would that have an affect and draw in people who may have not otherwise bought it?

NPD has released the official first month sales for NCAA 10. The game sold 376,500 for the 360 and 237,400 for the PS3. That represents a drop for both and a total loss of 26,200. That is a really bad sign for NCAA that it is actually slipping despite the user bases increasing. The only other yearly game that has shown that same trend is the MLB 2K franchise. So it is clear that something big needs to be done to turn things around, probably in the mold of what Madden has done from 09 to 10.

Also of note is the continuing disappointing sales of Fight Night Round 4. The game barely slipped in the top 10 with the 360 selling 116,400 in July and did not chart with the PS3. Contrary to some of the comments that had been made on my previous article regarding the first month’s sales for the game, it was sure to be heavily frontloaded and that has proven to be the case. Bad buzz likely had a big affect on why it came out of the gate selling weaker than anticipated along with the competition from UFC 2009 Undisputed.

Last week the first patch and downloadable content for Fight Night Round 4 made its way out on the 360 and was expected out today for the PS3. However issues have arisen with it on the 360 and Sony has rejected the update in certification.

Reports quickly started coming in that the 360 update was causing numerous oddities including button configurations being defaulted in online matches and fighters not in the game showing up in the fighter select screen. Ironically the patch that is supposed to add the optional button punching config is not arriving until September yet somehow it has made its presence known here. All the problems are seemingly random and isolated to online play and a workaround has been suggested by EA for those online matches where button punching is forced on.

If you want to be absolutely sure you don’t encounter this issue in online, back out to the Main Menu after each online fight and then re-enter the game mode. If you do happen to enter a fight with buttons, you can pause the game, go into the settings -> controller configuration menu and then back out which will cause a desync with both fighters not receiving a win or a loss on their record. The desync should only occur if the bug appears.

The patch has been delayed on the PS3 and will be combined with the previously announced September update that will add in the button punching option. The fix for the 360 may arrive prior to the second patch but that is uncertain at this time.

It has been a rough launch for FNR4. The controversy with removing the option of button punching dominated discussion around the game, fatigue and balance issues online, disappointing sales, and now a faulty patch has resulted in lots of frustration for consumers.

Both Fight Night Round 4 and UFC 2009 Undisputed have received their first patches for the 360. The PS3 will be seeing those same patches arrive in the near future. That will be Thursday August 6th for Fight Night but no date has been communicated for UFC. Continue on for the full list of changes. Leave your thoughts on the patches in the comments!

FNR4

• Legacy Mode – Fix for scheduling two fights at once and not being able to advance in the Legacy Mode schedule. Users will need to start a new Legacy Mode file for fix to be applied.

• Legacy Mode – Legacy Mode freezing fix for users’ encountering random freeze events. This fix applies to save load functionality and will NOT fix currently corrupted Legacy Files but will fix all new Legacy Files after the patch has been applied.

• XBOX 360 Boot Up Freeze – Sometimes game would freeze if user had a high number of playlists. This issue has been fixed to handle over 30 custom play lists elegantly. This is for XBOX 360 only.

• Online – Online HUD functionality altered so opponent’s HUD is hidden during the fight. Change made to improve quality of online game play.

• Live Tournament Feature – Fight Night Round 4 will be offering Live Tournaments in the future. This feature will not be accessible until the Live Tournament functionality it turned on. Stay tuned for more information regarding tournament dates and times.

• New Game Play Sliders – Two new sliders that allow the user to customize boxer stamina, boxer accuracy, and the counter punch window for off line game play.

UFC 2009

• We recognize premature match quitting as the biggest online issue and have taken steps to fix it. The Patch will have integrated code that detects who pulls the cable and will assign a Loss as well as a Did Not Finish to that player. The DNF is only counted for the player who executes the disconnection. The DNF rate will be displayed on the fighter selection screen of the Online Ranked Match. When disconnected the Winning Streak is also reset to 0.

• We’ve adjusted Ranked Matches to match up players with better connections, which will improve lag issues we’ve seen to date.

• We’ve adjusted the difficulty of performing submissions against AI opponents to improve the balance of subs vs. striking when playing against the AI.

• We’ve adjusted the Flash KO rate so that they are less frequent.

• We’ve increased maximum number of points awarded in online play from 99,999 to 999,999 and we’ve increased the Max Level from 100 to 200.

• We’ve lowered the Winning Streak Bonus Max from 5 to 3.

• We’ve removed the decimal places on the Leaderboard Winning Percentage so we only show whole percentages.

• We’ve addressed the CAF cheat so the skill levels in CAF cannot be cheated and increased. Also any CAF with unfair point values will no longer be able to be used Online.

• For PS3 users we’ve also fixed a bug that causes a freeze during auto-save; whichever controller was used to Press Start on the Title Screen will be identified as the main controller.

Fight Night has proven one of the few sports franchises that has mainstream appeal. Fight Night Round 3 represented the second strongest franchise in US sales for EA Sports behind only Madden. After taking a few years off Fight Night Round 4 came out last month though it was difficult to judge the buzz around the game. Discussion online primarily centered around the controversial decision to remove the optional button control scheme and UFC 2009 Undisputed had released to high praise.

We now have the official sales numbers for FNR4 from NPD and can look at what it means for the franchise.

Comparing numbers to the previous iteration with Fight Night isn’t as simple as it is with franchises that have been releasing on a yearly basis. FNR3 released just a couple of months after the 360 came out and had to wait until the end of that year to be a launch title on the PS3. While the 360 was somewhat supply strained at the time it was a game that was used to promote “next-gen” and came out in a relatively dead period for releases. Now there is some strong competition from UFC to contend with.

So because of those variables it wouldn’t make much sense to go into analysis on the growth from 3 to 4. It would be reasonable to expect FNR4 to show an increase in sales but how large for it to be a positive indication would’ve proven difficult to judge. As a sequel there is always that guaranteed fan base and the potential to build on it especially given how highly regarded FNR3 was. Less than strong numbers would show a weakness for the series in future years.

With the official numbers out the news for FNR4 is not good. The game sold a solid but far from spectacular 260,800 on the 360 and 210,300 on the PS3 for a combined 471,100 sold in June. That number falls far short of even what NCAA Football has been opening at the last few years.

The most embarrassing part of all this has to be that UFC 2009 Undisputed outsold Fight Night for the month on the 360 and in total. Yes, UFC’s second month outsold Fight Night’s first. I don’t think anyone would ever have predicted that. UFC 2009 Undisputed sold 1.14 million combined in its first month and that was the first game in the series which makes the numbers that much more astonishing. The total for the second month is estimated at just over 500,000 with the 360 accounting for 338K of that.

So what could have been the reason for the disappointing sales of Fight Night Round 4? Certainly the bad buzz generated from the removal of the button control scheme has to be considered. That dominated discussion about the game prior to release. However the main factor has to be the competition from UFC. Sure they are different sports but most consumers, including myself, view them as fighting games and that made it less likely that they would pick up both of them.

With the UFC gaining in popularity and boxing continuing its decline it is not a surprise that UFC would take over as the top licensed simulation fighting game. What does make for a surprise is that it happened on the first go round and in such a dominant way.

EA has revealed plans for upcoming Fight Night Round 4 downloadable content. The DLC will come in two waves one being in early August and the other in early September. The DLC will be available for free for both the 360 and PS3.

• August:  New gameplay sliders (punch accuracy, counter punch window, boxer stamina), a new gym, new equipment, and an alternate Sugar Ray Leonard exclusive to the 360.

• September:  Button control scheme.

It was almost inevitable that EA would have to add the button controls back given how prevalent discussion around the topic has been with consumers seemingly split down the middle on whether they prefer the analog stick or buttons. EA could’ve avoided all of that however they were stubborn and dismissive throughout development in regards to offering alternative button controls. Now it will over three months after release when the buttons become available via DLC having already alienated many it may be too late. Certainly the claim now that they are providing what the consumers want with choice seems less than genuine after the way they treated the situation over the last several months.

This DLC news is unrelated to a potential patch coming down the line that will adjust the troubling stamina system amongst other things. No ETA or further details has been provided about the patch.

Fight Night Round 4 made its way out last week as one of the most anticipated sports releases of the year. Over the last couple days I’ve found myself trying to get a feel for the game and playing online. Some of the detrimental aspects and design decisions have stood out the most once getting past the fantastic visuals. Continue on for some general thoughts and leave yours in the comments!

Much has been made over the longer development cycle that the game had to benefit from. That is most seen in the physics engine which does a fantastic job with things like hit detection and grazing shots. The graphics exceed FNR3 and challenge UFC 2009 as maybe the best of the generation. Those things make it feel like a fresh experience despite being a bi-yearly franchise.

There are a few aspects of the game that have stood out so far as negatively affecting the experience. The camera spins around a great deal and throughout longer fights I’ve found that to be disorienting. I also feel like at times I’m drawn into the opponent and can’t get away from them…almost like the game pushes you into the inside fighting. Fatigue seems to be the biggest issue. It is most pronounced in online bouts but it is the fatigue system in general and not online that has been exposed as a problem.

Go anywhere that is discussing the game and there will be a debate about the button punching being removed. This continues to be a baffling decision as it has upset a large faction of consumers and dominated talk surrounding the game. I actually used the analog stick in FNR3 so my feeling that buttons still should have been included is based on offering options as being a positive thing. For whatever reason though, despite uproar from the community, EA remained stubborn and refused to consider it.

Now though I almost want to go back to the buttons. I’m finding the stick to be inconsistent and too mechanical in nature. Rarely am I able to counter and in many cases I’m having to think about the type of punch and motion involved instead of going off reaction. This is especially the case with haymakers where you’re required to hold the RB which is incredibly awkward. I pretty much have forgotten about attempting to put combinations together. Not to mention that frequently I’m making motions with the stick and no punch comes or the wrong one is thrown.

The ironic thing is that one of the main reasons for removing the buttons was due to imbalance vs the analog stick with online. What that actually means is the buttons were more effective and precise. Now you just have people online stick “mashing” basically meaning nothing has changed. A proper fatigue system could’ve balanced things regardless of the control scheme being used. However people are throwing punches like crazy and not having to pay for it. Against the wrong person online it makes for a very frustrating experience.

At least online runs much better than the last iteration which was plagued with lag issues. I’ve yet to encounter anything but very smooth fights. Against the right people online it could be an enjoyable experience.

The Photo Face feature is a nice addition but again it doesn’t do a great job with the rare exceptions. I’ve yet to create anything that looks at all like me or the celebrities I was attempting to recreate. There are still a lack of options which have plagued it in the past such as not enough variations of hair styles. There are some good created fighters available to download though. Also it’s cool that they have the replay highlight uploading but where is the screenshot feature? This seems like a game perfect for that but it wasn’t included.

Again this is a beautiful game that deserves accolades based on various techncial achievements such as the amazing graphics and physics system. However the enjoyment level is probably going to be more split than was seen with FNR3. I wasn’t get a whole lot out of that game but I respected what it did for being early in the console’s life cycle. Right now I remember having more fun with that than I am with FNR4 though so I don’t forsee playing this extensively. I expect a lot of people will love this game but I’m thinking there will be a larger faction that dislikes it also.

Something I’ve done in that past that has been popular is taking a look at the differences in games on the 360 when played from disc vs the hard drive. Installing to the HDD has shown performance improvements in the games as well as cutting down on the stress to and noise from the console. Here is a look at the difference being seen in Fight Night Round 4.

Size of install- 4.4 GB. This is the smallest install I’ve completed since the feature was added.
Time to install- 6:20

Loading Times
Boot to menu screen- Disc 38 seconds vs HDD 24 seconds (14 seconds)
Load into Fight Now- Disc 29 seconds vs HDD 22 seconds (7 seconds)
Load back into menu- Disc 3 seconds vs HDD 2 seconds (1 second)
Load into Legacy- Disc 5 seconds vs HDD 4 seconds (1 second)
Load into Legacy fight- Disc 26 seconds vs HDD 22 seconds (4 seconds)

So significant improvement to the loading time is seen in the initial boot-up and a decent one for heading into each fight. It may also speed up the simming somewhat but that is harder to judge. Once again it is worthwhile to install the game not only for the better load times but also to keep the 360 running under minimal stress and reduced noise.

Through a few of the EA Sports titles the Photo Game Face feature has been evolving and improving. For Fight Night Round 4 this is a selling point in being able to add to the stable of fighters through creations of your own or by downloading others. I decided to look through the boxer gallery and found some that looked quite good and others that showed little resemblance to who it was supposed to represent.

What are your thoughts on the feature? Have you created a fighter through Photo Face that is worth checking out and downloading? Link to it in the comments!

Announced at E3, EA Sports MMA is set to release in 2010 and from then on alternate years with the Fight Night series. The game has been in development for quite some time so while it will be a while before details start to come out there is still discussion on the direction of the game and some early fighter signings.

In an interview with Gamastura, EA Sports President Peter Moore discussed the game and how they are targeting individual fighter rights. Given that THQ holds the exclusive license for UFC that makes it much more difficult to fill out a roster with fighters who are well known to the public. The UFC 2009 Undisputed fighters were forced into lifetime agreements with THQ so none of them will be a possibility.

We are looking obviously at every fighter that we can, that we feel is applicable from a quality level and then analyzing their image rights, and if they’re available and we want them — then we’ll get them. If they’re not then we’ll move on to the next fighter.

So far confirmed for the EA MMA game are Tim Sylvia and Randy Couture and likely Fedor Emelianenko and Gegard Mousasi. That is a pretty good start but it remains to be seen if a roster could be built based off non-UFC fighters that will be appealing. Eventually the game may end up having to be more about created fighters and offering a high level of customization.