Skip to main content

Long read: The beauty and drama of video games and their clouds

"It's a little bit hard to work out without knowing the altitude of that dragon..."

If you click on a link and make a purchase we may receive a small commission. Read our editorial policy.

EA Sports' Peter Moore

"People are paying $10 and enjoying Online Pass."

Eurogamer Is Kinect too expensive?
Peter Moore

We're about to find out. Microsoft is obviously incredibly bullish. But I hear in the UK in particular the pre-orders are strong. The entire industry, ourselves included, are looking forward to a strong launch from both them and Sony. But the consumer is in the driving seat on this one so we'll wait and see.

EurogamerWhen we ran the story saying Kinect will cost £130 in the UK, there were quite a few negative comments from gamers saying it was too expensive. I wonder, though, how casual gamers will feel about the price.
Peter Moore

You could argue that they're even less likely to pay that kind of money - the more casual people just don't see the benefit. Like I said, we're about to find out. We're only a couple of months away from launch. So from the point of view of the consumer, they're going to determine whether it's too expensive or not.

Eurogamer Are you happy with the commercial success of the last Tiger Woods game?
Peter Moore

Commercially, the numbers speak for themselves. It's not where we'd want to be on a year on year basis. It's been disappointing, in particular on the Wii. There's no hiding, because the results are there. The Wii has been a disappointment.

It was a difficult year because we had the Wii MotionPlus bundle the previous year. That was a tremendous platform for us to sell on. We had strong advertising, strong support from Nintendo, both Nintendo of Europe and Nintendo of America. Consequently we always knew [this] was going to be a difficult year.

I will say this: we're continuing to focus on the Ryder Cup being a boost for us, and then Tiger on Move becomes a good opportunity for us to get on a new platform launch. You're going to see Tiger well represented as part of the Move launch from our point of view.

Remember, Andrew Wilson from my team was on stage at the Sony press conference at E3. They chose that as the game they thought showed off Move best. We'll get a boost this September. Ryder Cup is in October. We have the Ryder Cup licence. We have online teamplay built into the game, but Ryder Cup hasn't started yet. Whenever it's in Europe it's a big boost for us because it's a popular tournament over here.

So, it's a little early, but the early numbers are disappointing.

Eurogamer What about from a quality perspective?
Peter Moore

When you look at Metacritic we're down a point or two, but I don't think there's been a drastic drop. Anything over 80... Particularly something like golf where there are no monster changes, there are no player trades, no new uniforms. We've built upon feature upon feature upon feature.

The other thing we've done, which people forget, is launch Tiger Woods Online. So while we're looking for console business and saying, boy, I wish we'd sold more, we've stretched our reach into other areas. Tiger Woods Online is a long play into bringing in new golf consumers in a different way. And that of course is not recorded from a sales perspective.

So yes, disappointed with the early going. It's a long road. Tiger as a game always has a long tail. We've got some heat coming up with the launch of Move, the Ryder Cup in October, and then Christmas is always strong for golf. Probably come January we'll look at the situation again.

Eurogamer Some analysts suggest the situation with Tiger's private life has impacted sales.
Peter Moore

Yeah, it's a consumer call. I'm sure it probably has something to do with it, but there are a lot of elements. That's a consumer call we have no control over.

We've been clear on our positioning. We stand by Tiger as a golfer. He's still the number one golfer in the world. I don't think there's much doubt he'll get picked for the Ryder Cup - that would be a big disappointment for people in Europe. Tiger not playing well is not good for golf. It's as simple as that.

We've been consistent in standing by him, continuing to do so, and look forward to the day when he gets back to the form that won him 14 Majors and 71 PGA Tour events. You don't suddenly lose it. Of course, he's got a little bit of a challenge going on in his private life. We wish him all the best with it.