The New Shooting Mechanics in NBA ELITE 11

What do you think about the new shooting mechanic?

Quick Pics from E3

E3 is just about in the books and these past three days have been nothing short of a video gamers dream come true!  I know we've got more videos on the way but in the meantime I thought I'd throw up some pics from my walk through the EA SPORTS floor today.  Great job by all the EA SPORTS demo staff on hand as it's no doubt there are plenty of tired feet and lost voices among them.

But enough from me...click on the thumbs to see larger versions and thanks to all the fans at home for their replies and comments on my twitter this past week.

EA SPORTS Dominates Best of E3 Sports Category

The critics have spoken and the hard work put in by the number of development teams at Tiburon and EA Canada have been recognized on Day Two of E3.  IGN released their list of nominees, less Best Overall game, and within the Sports Video Games category EA SPORTS had the only five titles listed.  The five that will by vying for their Best Sports Game at E3 are EA SPORTS MMA, Madden NFL 11, FIFA Soccer 11, NHL 11, and NBA JAM.

What was also pretty cool was during today's EA SPORTS Show with Peter Moore, three EA SPORTS titles also received nods to get into the Video Game Guinness Book of World Records.  The FIFA franchise, with Producer David Rutter on hand, received a Guinness Award for the highest sales in a franchise pushing out 60 million copies in its lifetime.  The Madden NFL franchise was recognized for its longevity as Senior Producer Phil Frazier received the award for most titles in a series.  Does anyone know how many years the franchise has been out?  First correct answer tweeted to me @sk88z gets a copy of Madden NFL 11 when the game ships!  Lastly, NHL 09 received a Guinness Award for being the First MMO Sports game with David Littman receiving the award on behalf of the team back at EA Canada.

With a couple of extra hours more than yesterday and what seemed to be bigger crowds, the show floor definitely heated up and I joked on twitter that the one booth that could've been as big a hit as the EA booth would've been a Speed Stick one.  However, if you were lucky enough to get in behind closed doors to check out some of the EA SPORTS games that weren't on the show floor, you were welcomed with some nice AC and an exclusive look at NHL 11, FIFA 11, NBA ELITE 11, and OTP action in Madden NFL 11.

Following today's EA SPORTS Show (we'll have videos tomorrow right here on the Inside EA SPORTS blog), select community leaders were given an opportunity to not only get inside those closed doors, but they also were given a chance to speak directly with Peter Moore and get some questions with him.  Community leaders from Operation Sports, the The Bitbag, TQCast, SFX-360, 360 Sync and more got inside looks that were usually only reserved for larger press outlets.

See below for videos posted today including a look at demonstration of EA SPORTS Active and a full quarter of NBA JAM:

And if you missed the blogs posted earlier, click here to check out yesterday's EA SPORTS Live Show and OTP action in Madden NFL 11.

Check back tomorrow for more from EA at E3 including today's EA SPORTS Live show featuring another live demonstration of EA SPORTS Active on the XBOX 360 Kinect, and Gus Johnson doing live play-by-play with Madden NFL 11.

That's it for now...we're off to the Strikeforce MMA event tonight at the Nokia Center and then who knows what the night brings. May want to follow me on twitter for a fun tweetphoto or two ;)

EA's E3 Press Conference Impresses

Though the doors to the LA Convention Center don't open until tomorrow, today was filled with early E3 goodness as press conferences from first-party manufacturers and leading publishers, including Electronic Arts, were attended by gamers that have descended into the city.  EA proudly introduced ten titles that will be featured this week and among them, EA SPORTS grabbed the attention of sports gamers as President Peter Moore introduced EA SPORTS Active 2, EA SPORTS MMA, and Madden NFL 11.

With yesterday's official unveiling of the XBOX 360's Kinect (formerly known as Natal...I wonder if it'll have a symbol?), EA SPORTS Active 2 naturally becomes the first game out the label to bring the new motion sensing device to our fans.  The on-stage demonstration saw @EASActiveGirl and others sweating it up with new exercises using the new wireless leg and arm straps that include heart-rate monitors (which by the way had KP up at 167 bpm...either that's quite the workout or she was just a tad nervous on stage as well!).  Check out the newest EA SPORTS Active 2 video here.

Here's what fans had to say on Twitter:

@yuki_hime - @EASActiveGirl You were looking good up on that stage. Looking forward to seeing more of EA SPORTS Active 2!
@scbound - I want the EA SPORTS Active 2...definitely something I'd love to get! 

We've known for a while now that coming this fall we'd be diving into mixed martial arts with EA SPORTS MMA.  Today the team from Tiburon announced that two fighters will be on the cover of the game which will officially be released on October 26^th.
Gracing the cover of the first MMA game from EA SPORTS will be the ageless legend Randy Couture along with heavyweight bruiser and world champion Fedor Emelianenko.  Moore talked about different individual fighter styles and how they've been recreated in the game along with how different real-world environments will provide their own flavor making every fight unique.

The biggest news coming out of the game, however, had to be the announcement of EA SPORTS Live Broadcast.  This new feature in EA SPORTS MMA gives gamers the chance to fight in front of fans everywhere and truly experience what it is like to be a professional athlete.  You will be able to upload your personal pre-fight hype video message online and selected fighters will have their fights broadcasted live along with accompanying play-by-play.  It's a pretty ambitious endeavor and could most definitely be the start of something bigger and better for all EA SPORTS titles.  Make sure you tune in tomorrow at 3PM PST to see the first EA SPORTS MMA Live Broadcast!

@brianjyriel - EA MMA is lookin' awesome! Especially EA SPORTS Live Broadcast!
@TheCodySchulman - Sounds like the most badass MMA game ever!

Finally, Moore unveiled some of the new features to Madden NFL 11 including an all new way for gamers to call their plays and online co-op.  What better person to enter stage-left than 4-time Super Bowl Champion and Hall of Famer Joe Montana.  They broke down what coaches and QB's do during play-calling and how the card the coach holds contains plays divided up by situation.  For example, there are specific plays the coach would call in a 1^st and 10 down in your own half vs a 3^rd and 4 inside the red zone.  By the sounds of it, plays will be available in the menu based on down and distance which should make it a little easier to get the right play at the right time. I'm pretty sure during Joe's time they didn't have mics inside player's helmets providing coaching advice on the fly, though it is a cool new feature in the upcoming Madden. Check out the new features here:  PS3 Features / XBOX 360 Features

@Lirodon - Madden NFL 11 looks quite awesome!
@jcallahan - Madden NFL 11 looks to easily be the slickest, most accessible, and all around best Football game ever. Oh and the cover is awesome.

During the press conference, we also pushed out a bunch of new content including the first NHL 11 trailer, NCAA Football 11 blog and video to go with today's demo release, and more videos from Peter Moore on his thoughts on EA SPORTS MMA, Madden NFL 11, and NCAA Football 11 at E3 this week.­­­


All this and we haven't even gotten inside the conference center yet!  For the lucky fans that are at E3 tomorrow, make sure you head over to the EA stage at 3:00PM PST where Peter Moore will be hosting the EA SPORTS Show and talking with producers and special guests.  On tap for discussion will be NBA JAM, Tiger Woods PGA Tour 11 on the Sony Move, NHL Slapshot, and EA SPORTS MMA.  I'll be there a little bit before the start to give away a bunch of swag so follow me on Twitter and during the show we'll be giving away a couple of Dwight Howard autographed copies of Nintendo Power along with some tickets to Wednesday night's Strikeforce event. 

Tomorrow plans to be quite the opening day of E3 and I couldn't be more excited to be in Los Angeles for this year's event.  Look out for tweetphotos, quick stories, and swag giveaways live and on twitter from the EA SPORTS Community team throughout the week.