Last weekend was a big one for boxing fans in Las Vegas, with Manny Pacquiao scoring an eight-round TKO of Oscar De La Hoya. As much as I would have been interested to have seen the fight, I didn’t. But that’s something promoter Bob Arum would like to change. In a story in last week’s LA Times , Arum says the future of boxing is getting it back on network television and away from only being able to watch the sport on cable and pay per view. I am old enough to remember when a championship fight at any weight was a really big deal in the world of sports. I clearly remember listening to BBC radio as a kid to the Cassius Clay fights, and then of course when he became Muhammad Ali and fought those monumental battles against Frazier and Foreman. Those fights were network TV primetime specials, and the sport got huge positive coverage as a result. Sadly now we need to cough up $55 or so to see these fighters in action, something so few people are willing or able to do in these difficult times.
While I hope one day boxing does make a return to network TV, in the meantime the best place for fighting fans to get their fix is our Fight Night franchise. I hope you’ll all be watching the Spike VGAs live this Sunday, where I’ll be joined by a special guest on stage to show the worldpremiere of Fight Night Round 4. Fight Night Round 3 remains one of the most critically and commercially successful games of this hardware generation, and I’ll never forget when I saw the first concept video of the game back more than two years ago. On Sunday, you’re going to see something never before seen in a videogame. And next summer, I’m confident you’ll see a game that will build on the rich heritage of this great franchise.
A few weeks ago we promised you more direct interaction with our development teams, particularly
when it comes to answering your specific product-focused questions (that would be you Jack, dolly lama, Bee- $, etc.). Now on EA Sports World, we’ve got many of our dev team pages up and running, with multiple producers from each game now regularly interacting with fans and answering your questions, posting blogs looking for your feedback on our games, and more.
Here are the first few that you can now view on EA SPORTS World:
Not only can fans now regularly communicate with our dev teams at the above pages, we also have a full customer support team that can also answer customer service-related issues: http://www.support.ea.com. So as I’ve said
before, we want to get this right and we’ve got a number of good options now in place for you.
We want the feedback. We listen to the feedback. And our teams are in position to listen and react to much of you have to say. You be the judge. Please let me know what you think. And are there other dev teams that do this
really well, either within EA or around the industry, that you’d like to see us learn from?
On a related note, “Jack” let me try to bury the socks/towels issue once and for all. I get it, and understand what you feel the game needs to be more authentic. The dev teams have seen the posts, and will discuss this issue at the aforementioned blog soon . Peace?
“Simon”: No announcements to make on cricket and rugby right now, but rest assured we are keeping a very close eye on developments in both sports, particularly on the Twenty20 format in cricket, that really seems to have invigorated the sport in the past year. Stay tuned.
So don’t forget to tune in to the VGA’s on 12/14 (9pm ET on Spike) when I will be premiering the first look at Fight Night Round 4 (and I will have a special guest there to help me out…)
Also, be sure to visit the official Fight Night Round 4 website for all of the latest news and videos of the game.
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