We recently spoke to Gary Patterson, the Senior Creative Director for the upcoming NBA Live 14. We were able to gleaned some insight as to why the next installment in this hugely popular series will be released exclusively one next-gen consoles PS4 and Xbox One, despite the fact that the current gen has a base of more than 150 million gamers.
“Building for Gen4 only was not a decision that I was personally involved in, but is definitely one I support. Doing so has allowed the team to concentrate on building an engine for the future. It has allowed us to make decisions on features and technology that will put us in a very strong position going forward on Gen4. Finally it allows us to focus all our resources on Gen4 and thus create as strong a product as we possibly can this year. “
NBA Live 14 is one of few games that will feature EA’s next-gen Ignite engine. Patterson went on to speak to the benefits that this engine will have on game play.
“We have had to do extensive surgery to lots of the core fundamentals of the game. Dribbling, Locomotion. Passing, Shooting, Rebounding, Blocking… all of these systems and more have been rewritten or substantially reworked. We could not have done this without EA SPORTS IGNITE. There are so many inbuilt technologies, with the animation tech being especially relevant to gameplay. I don’t want to go too deep into it as much of it is proprietary, but suffice to say that it has allowed us to progress at a rate that could not have been possible without it.”
The core pillars of EA SPORTS IGNITE; Human Intelligence, True Player Motion and Living Worlds, are key to NBA LIVE.”
Here is Patterson’s breakdown of how the pillars of Ignite will manifest within NAB Live 14.
Human Intelligence: “We are powering our AIwith the real world statics through our exclusive partnership with Synergy Sports Technology. CourtQ (Court Quotient) uses real world statistics that reflect player tendencies, percentages and abilities and will be updated throughout the season to reflect the real world performances. Through our partnership with Synergy, we are using the same data and stats all 30 NBA teams use in scouting, analysis and preparation. With NBA LIVE 14, gone are the days were AI was subjectively designed or limited to a few select categories around shooting percentages.”
True Player Motion: “In addition to bounceTek that replicates the fluidity, creativity and authentic control in the art of the dribble, we will feature more than 40 NBA star player signature moves and thousands of new animations that will make NBA LIVE 14 look, feel and play like the next-generation of basketball.”
Living Worlds: “A LIVE World is all about creating both a social and competitive experience for the connected consumer routed in the authenticity of the NBA. The NBA season delivers consistent excitement and we are looking to do the same with NBA LIVE 14, on daily basis. We’ll give gamers near-daily challenges and content, including alignment with the real-world NBA events throughout the course of the season.”
NBA Live 14 will release for PS4 and Xbox One on November 15th.