Earlier today the nominees for the 2009 Video Game Awards were announced. You can vote in all of the categories here. Two of them are sports related with the “Best Individual Sports Game” and “Best Team Sports Game”. The show will air Saturday December 12th on Spike.

For the “Best Individual Sports Game” the nominees are Fight Night Round 4, Tiger Woods 10, UFC 2009 Undisputed, and Wii Sports Resort. The “Best Team Sports Game” options are the same as last year with FIFA 10, Madden 10, NBA 2K10, and NHL 10.

The most glaring omission is in the team sports category which did not include MLB 09: The Show. While I still take issue with the game’s poor online play it deserves recognition for everything else it does right. It is probably more worthy of being in the running than NBA 2K10 and NHL 10.

Last year the two winners were Shaun White Snowboarding and NHL 09 which goes to show the winners are not necessarily based on popularity. FNR4 will probably battle with UFC 2009 for the individual sports title while FIFA 10 may take the team sports crown if it can get enough support to top Madden 10.

This past weekend Randy Couture came out victorious over Brandon Vera at UFC 105. Despite his current involvement there it is EA Sports MMA that will include Couture. With promotion of the game (release in mid-2010) gearing up EA Sports is featuring some of the fighters involved in chat sessions.

The chat will begin at 3PM ET/12PM PT today (Tuesday) and it will run for one hour. This is not for discussion about the game instead the focus is on interaction with Couture.

The easiest way to follow the chat and participate can be found right here. Just enter this article and the chat application will be available. Those familiar with the last live blog I ran will recognize the chat format. You will be able to make comments and submit questions but those coordinating the chat will select what ultimately appears.

The recent job cuts at EA are unlikely to have much if any effect on the majority of the yearly sports titles but one aspect of the company’s new strategy could very well change the landscape of sports gaming. EA is cutting the bottom third of their software lineup based on potential profitability. While that mostly applies other divisions of EA there are some games under the EA Sports label which could be reevaluated based on current sales and future prospects.

EA has already gotten rid of Nascar from the slate and experiments like NFL Head Coach are not going to return. We’ve also seen the arcade offerings shift to the downloadable only method and that is likely to continue. There is the possibility of the WWE license being picked up and in a couple years EA will be back with an MLB game. The yearly sports titles are very lucrative with EA going out of their way to state that they are protecting them and most are going to be just fine but clearly there are some changes on the way.

Safe
Madden
FIFA
NCAA Football
EA Sports MMA
NHL
Tiger Woods
EA Sports Active

In Danger

NCAA Basketball – College basketball games have never sold well, thus why 2K Sports dropped their College Hoops franchise. The question now becomes whether there is enough support for even one game. NCAA Basketball is probably the most likely of these titles to get cut after this year unless the sales come in and are encouraging. Support for NCAA 10 in areas such as marketing have been weak and it almost feels like it has been sent out to die. That is not a good sign and the resources put into the game have clearly been limited. There is a legit chance that there will be no college basketball game out next year.

NBA Live – The top 20 NPD was released and NBA Live 10 did not even chart with the 360 version. That means the 360 sold about 100K leaving it to finish behind Madden 10’s third month and FIFA 10 on the PS3. Essentially it has gained little to nothing in sales while falling considerably farther behind the competition and now owns just 32% of the NBA gaming market. The cost of the NBA license and the money invested in this franchise has been heavy the last couple years.

If Live survives to have a Live 11, which indications right now are that it will, that will probably be the make-or-break year for the franchise. After gaining some ground this year in customer perception if it does not start to show significant progress in sales it will quite possibly be gone or there may be a reinvention to offer something totally different than the competition.

Fight Night – The first three iterations of Fight Night were huge. Then came FNR4 which never got any positive momentum and disappointed in sales. Signing boxers individually is costly. Sharing some resources with MMA will save some in development costs. Fight Night will probably not see a big revamp the next time around like it received for Round 4 to try and turn more of a profit. I don’t think Fight Night will go away as it will keep the every other year rotation with MMA but the resources may be regulated better next time around.

Madden Wii – No matter what EA does with Madden on the Wii it just can’t gain any traction. Despite the console continuing to sell at extraordinary rates Madden actually dropped from a meager 150K-ish opening month for every year of the Wii to just 60K in the first month this year. The NFL license may require that EA produces a game on the Wii and if they continue to force that look for the game to try something completely new yet again. It could just end up being a collection of mini-games which is about all that sells for 3rd party companies on the Wii.

Likely Cut

Grand Slam Tennis – Was originally planned to come to the 360 and PS3 but after a lukewarm reception on the Wii the momentum stalled and it was indefinitely delayed. Based on their comments a game like this would not make sense.

• EA Sports has announced the details of another patch for Fight Night Round 4. A full listing of changes to the game that will come with the patch can be found here.

• The 360 achievements for NCAA Basketball 10 are out. Sadly they are the exact same as last year minus one achievement that has been removed.

• Just over a week before the release of NCAA Basketball 10 and still nothing detailing the “dynamic updates” that appeared in the feature list and were inexplicably missing from the EA provided fact sheet. NcaaStrategies has some speculation on what the feature may be about.

• Kotaku has “reviewed” the Madden 10 KFC box. First time I’ve seen a meal reviewed.

• As mentioned late last week sign-ups in the forum are being taken for those interested in receiving one of the few limited spots in the Pastapadre Madden 10 Online Dynasty. Selections will be made within the next couple days for the handful of teams available.

During the Strikeforce event this evening EA Sports revealed the first trailer for EA MMA. As was announced on Friday the game features Strikeforce as a premier league and several fighters from the promotion are already lined up for the game. EA used the opportunity of the first event in the US featuring Fedor Emelianenko to provide the debut footage of the game as he is one of the headline fighters for EA MMA.

The trailer features all in-game footage with the main event participants Fedor Emelianenko vs Brett Rogers. Continue on to check it out and leave your thoughts in the comments!

Considering the unveiling of EA MMA during the Strikeforce event tomorrow night it comes as little surprise that the Strikeforce organization will be featured as a premier league in the game. In addition to that announcement two new fighters have joined the roster in Brett Rogers and Jake Shields. Those two along with Fedor Emelianenko, Jason Miller, and Muhammed Lawal will be in main events in the nationally televised event on CBS.

With this partnership, the STRIKEFORCE cage and the league’s commentary team of Frank Shamrock and Mauro Ranallo, as well as ring announcer Jimmy Lennon Jr., will be incorporated into the game. Legendary mixed martial arts referee “Big John” McCarthy will preside over the in-ring action and bring his in-depth knowledge of the sport to help deliver a truly authentic MMA experience.

The structure of the game is starting to shape up nicely now that the roster is filling and organization focus has been set. While there is still the uphill battle of appealing to consumers who are primarily UFC fans it looks like EA Sports is doing everything they can to provide a compelling product.

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 first look at EA MMA will come during the November 7th Strikeforce event on CBS. The game will be used to preview each fight before they begin.

• The original first screenshot for EA MMA, which was first found and scanned from Sports Illustrated, can now be found in the screenshot gallery.

• While I generally don’t cover WWE games it is worth noting that the license has run out for THQ and the period to extend it has now been pushed back to the end of the year. Presumably WWE has done this to give THQ more time to make the deal. If it doesn’t happen then one has to wonder if EA Sports will jump on the WWE license.

• A few outlets have given some hands-on thoughts on Madden Arcade. You can check them out at IGN or 1Up.

• Kotaku has posted up a good interview with NCAA Basketball 10 producer Connor Dougan. Mentioned in the article is that the dual-presentation took up around 60% of the development time. That right there probably explains the lack of much else being added to the game this year.

Though there has been some news on EA MMA in the months following the initial announcement of the game that has been limited to fighter reveals.  Details about the game, which is expected to release next summer, are still largely unknown. The first screenshot though has now appeared in Sports Illustrated with the image provided by Middle Easy.

The Photo Game Face feature has been used in previous EA Sports titles such as Tiger Woods. This year it arrives for use in FIFA 10 as your Virtual Pro. Unfortunately it has become an exercise in frustration and finishes up with a poor final representation. There are over 5000 comments on the Game Face page and most have to do with problems being had or the lack of Mac support.

The whole process behind Game Face is extremely tedious. First go to the website and login. The EASportsWorld or EAFootballWorld sites have always loaded extremely slow which just makes things worse. Once you login you may be directed to a page that doesn’t even have a way to start setting up a Game Face. In several instances I ended up having to circle around numerous times until I actually found a page where I could begin the process. Once finally in there are two required software downloads that must be made for the program to run.

Despite claims on the website Game Face does not work with Firefox. Don’t bother wasting your time logging in and starting to set everything up. Eventually there is a point where the screen will just be blank and nothing else can be done and none of the progress will be saved. Game Face right now only works in Internet Explorer.

If you do eventually get a photo uploaded and the face generated then there are a bunch of options for tweaking the properties of the face and adding hair or facial hair. Thankfully there are more hair options now than in the past however for some reason there are still no choices for long hair. It seems odd that created players can not have long hair when even many soccer stars do.

My first completed attempt was made and unfortunately the program didn’t render him any eyeballs so I scrapped that one. The next attempt was tossed when it appeared my guy had a severe skin condition. After investing so much time and experiencing so much frustration just getting to that stage with them I gave up. It was no longer worth it.

The biggest problem people seem to be having is with the character once transferred over to the game. While many have been seemingly satisfied with the face while viewing it on the computer, once in-game it has changed in some manner or appears awkwardly fit on the body.

Many may not even be aware of the feature though I expect that the majority of those who are won’t have the patience to go through this process. Add to that how the final result is not even turning out well and this feature has become a big disappointment.