FIFA is getting on a bit… it has been around for nearly twenty one years. The first incarnation of the FIFA football game was created in 1993 and was available on Amiga and Sega’s MasterSystem. The game has grown and morphed into a franchise on a plethora of different platforms from mobile, console to PC. However, with EA’s E3 announcement of FIFA 15 yesterday, has the game changed or is it more of the same? Now bear with me here… It’s a football game and the rules have been the same for over a hundred years. That’s not the issue, what I mean by change is that the game needs to change and morph with time – the 2D top-down gaming of the 90s was changed completely by the 3D experience of the early noughties. What is required is something different – from emotive to visual flair in order to help bring FIFA 15 into the realm of next-gen greatness!

In the Los Angeles Convention Centre, EA did just that! EA announced that the FIFA 14 technologies and code changed that have yet to yield results – from the in-air ball physics engine, the changes to the Ignite EA engine and the wider principles of uncertainty which were part of FIFA 14 that just didn’t quite work – have all been re-engineered by EA in order to make a true break from the past. FIFA 15 will bring football gameplay into the next level by incorporating more fluid and dynamic playability modes – think two step dribbles with ‘stuttering steps’ before shooting a goal which is ‘doable’ on FIFA 14 but it will become a more fluid part of gameplay on FIFA 15. This is the issue – you watch FIFA 12, 14 or FIFA 2002 and you know you’re playing against a computer or that your multiplayer opponent could never do that on a real pitch. This is what EA wants to change by making fluidity in game play more realistic and this is what EA have announced at their epic E3 conference.

FIFA 15 will bring ‘reality’ onto the pitch once more. It will create real-life dynamism in terms of spinning and arcing the ball’s movement on the pitch and in the air and will help re-define how the contact between player and ball is crunched by the Ignite engine. This is a massive change – one that some doubt is doable. The next-gen consoles have yet to ignite the passion of the masses in terms of epic visual output. However, FIFA 15 needs to be something different – not a step change but a wholesale change in one of the gaming calendar’s most successful annual launches. So we are looking forward to FIFA 15 to see if we can bring to an end the curse of the ‘oh, he’d never do that on a real pitch’ mentality of FIFA gameplay?

Microsoft is one of the videogame sector’s biggest players. It is a giant among minnows. Its videogame division has revenues of £5.5Bn and it is a massive player in both the console and PC gaming environments. Because of Microsoft’s role as console maker, games maker and all-out technology superpower, their E3 conferences are usually a big fan favourite. This year was no different.

First, we need to highlight something. It’s something really, really big. Microsoft at last year’s E3 talked about the Xbox One as an ‘all round entertainment platform’. Yesterday’s announcement was a little less grandiose as the focus of the entire event was on gaming. This is surprising as ‘entertainment’ was no-where to be seen? No Steven Spielberg made TV shows or music or social media apps, just boring old video games? What happened?

Microsoft in the past year has been ‘listening to fans’ and these ‘listening exercises’ resulted in some wholesale changes – not least of all, the boot given to the Kinect sensor. The changes were predicated on fan’s requirements that Microsoft, in a way, goes back to basics. This is what Microsoft’s E3 endeavours were all about.

They started off by ‘dropping’ the One. Not one mention of the Xbox One. It was all ‘Xbox’ and nothing else. The games demoed included Halo 5, Forza Horizon 2 along with Fable Legends. In the ‘active’ camps they announced Dance Central as a somewhat ‘Kinect’ ready title. However, they continued with a nice little exclusive surrounding a new game called Scalebound – a dragon fighting epic.

In usual Microsoft fashion, ‘exclusive’ DLC packs are going to be made available for Call of Duty: Advance Warfare before PS4 and additionally for Tom Clancy’s The Divison which will have special DLC features. Another ‘gem’ from the past was the announcement that Microsoft and Real-Time Worlds are working on a re-boot, of sorts, of the cult classic Crackdown.

These titles showcase a changing attitude from Microsoft, led by Phil Spencer, as they move away from the entertainment-only focus which was a disaster first-time round for the Xbox (One). The core branding is a nod to the disaster of the Xbox One and Kinect launch. They are offering fans a Mea Culpa – an apology – of sorts by offering some great next-gen content. This is the key here, as last year developers were working on multi platforms (i.e. PS3/PS4 and Xbox 360 and Xbox One). This time round they are just working on next-gen – this can be seen in the quality. So thank goodness Microsoft has seen the error in its ways and have found new traction and new motivation to move forwards.

The Independent Games Developer Association (TIGA) has issued a press release summarising its Making Games in the UK Today: June 2014 Annual Report. The report outlines that “the UK videogame development sector is back on track, with studio headcounts, wider games industry employment, tax revenue and investment all on the up.” The report continues, “Employment in the UK games development sector has returned to levels last seen in 2008, with a rise of seven per cent in 2013 representing a five-year high. The games development sector also contributes more than £1 billion to the UK’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP).”

The findings illustrate how successful post-recession UK videogame companies have been – from the smallest to the largest. The report stated that nearly 28,000 individuals are employed – directly or indirectly – by the UK videogames sector. The British Government received £419 million from combined direct and indirect taxes generated by the sector as a whole. These numbers are massive and highlight how successful British gaming has become. However, it should be noted that whilst the TIGA assessment rings true, the 2007/08 recession impacted heavily upon the sector and it has taken up until now to plateau at that level. The wider industry has seen a decline in traditional console/PC based gaming with a higher percentage generated from mobile gaming revenue – which back in 2007/08 was still in its infancy.

The success of mobile gaming, whilst brilliant for job creation and tax revenue collection, does augment the argument in a sense that more development is needed to return to pre-2008 levels of console/PC gaming development – the closure of different companies from Blitz to Modus Operandi highlight how tough the sector can be. However, from such closures – smaller companies have, like a phoenix swooping from the ashes, risen from these closures to create smaller and more innovative gaming companies. Perhaps what this report fails to really ‘applaud’ is this new rise of micro developer working in the mainstream?

Here it is, NHL15 E3 trailer. Just seen this tonight at E3 Expo. Were you watching right here on UGP?