14 DAY TRIAL // EA Sports has just sent word that no less than 500 million on line matches have been played since June 2008, when the company implemented a tracking system. Gamers continue to increase that number by about 2.2 million matches each day, logging in around 4 billion gameplay minutes. The increase over last year is of 175%, which is pretty huge.
EA Sports is also saying that the release of Ultimate Team mode for FIFA 09, which happened on March 19, has generated a spike in activity, described as the “highest online activity for FIFA 09 in the lifecycle of the product.” The new mode allows players to put together dream teams, selecting from a variety of players and of tactics. These teams can then be tested online.
The biggest performers online, from the extensive line up of sports videogames that EA Sports is publishing, are Madden NFL 09 and FIFA 09, each of them claiming 2.4 million registered users who go online.
Peter Moore, the president of EA Sports, has said that “EA Sports is committed to providing personal access to the emotion of sports by continuing to create immersive online features, compelling new downloadable content and daily real-time stats updates.”
Even if the numbers quoted above sound impressive, EA Sports is facing some pretty tough challenges. After all, there are a lot of gamers on the PC, the Xbox 360 and the PlayStation 3 who see the yearly iterations for series like NBA, NFL or FIFA as little more than glorified updates. And on the Wii, the All Play initiative failed to produce the sought results.
Now, the company is trying to attract again Wii gamers, releasing Tiger Woods PGA Tour 10 later in the year, bundled with a Wii Motion Plus, which improves the motion tracking of the Wiimote, and also launching, for the first time, a tennis title.