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| NFS 7: Will there be NFS 7? |
Wednesday, 13.11.2002 |
The last week Cadillac, the EA represantative posted shortly after the patch announcement a post where he talks about NFS 7, the history of Onlinegaming and why games are developed more on consoles, although pc games will never go away:
"Initial reports indicate the sales of this title are pretty good overseas in areas like Austrailia and Europe (no surprise). In addition, there is a warm reception in Far East territories like Korea and especially Japan.
Will sales figures meet expectation? Hard to say? Will it meet the standard set by High Stakes or Porsche Unleashed (both platinum sellers to date)? One can only guess. Depending on how well HP2 does through the holiday season will drive how much additional energies will be placed in it. I certainly don't want to raise expectations but these are the factors that are considered in this business and further development with it. This was certainly the case with HS and PU.
I've been told that the NFS franchise is still alive and well. In fact, NFS VII (7) is in the late stages of design now. It occurred to me earlier that it's become confusing trying to associate names of the NFS games with numbers so let's set the record right here. I'm sure those of you who have followed the series will know more of the titles than I so this open to correction:
NFS - The Original - 1
NFS II - 2
NFS Hot Pursuit - 3
NFS: High Stakes - 4
NFS: Poresche Unleashed - 5
NFS: Hot Pursuit II - 6
NFS: ~insert title here~ - 7
I think I've leaked the title names in the past but as I've also mentioned in the past, these things (especially at this stage) are highly subject to change. We'll have to see what materializes.
Without soundling like I am babbling too much it appears to me that the interests of the franchise and what made it become so popular a property to us (EA) in the past has once again started to drive (pun intended) the direction of the game. Allow me to elaborate:
HS was the first client-server multiplayer effort within the racing titles at EA. Many, many lessons were learned about producing the online portion of HS and eventually PU. It ended up being a pretty engaging entertainment option for racing online. That's when I started. Using was was learned in NFS 4 and 5, MCO was conceived. Since it was not clear that an online, persisent racing title would work, it was NOT inlcuded in the NFS franchise and did not get the name altough the ties are undeniable. The studios that produced NFS 4 and 5 learned that producing and maintaining a PSW (Persistent State World) racing game was difficult and expensive.
Enter an increasing popularity in consoles.
As a distributor and successful producer of console games, we (EA) had to give homage to this platform. Margins in the market are high. The level of flawlessness expected from a finished product are much higher than PC but once achieved, the rest is relative gravy. A convenient multiplayer option for PC when you try to to incorporate the same console theories is not client-server, but matchmaker service (a la GameSpy).
So here we are today. What's next? Well... you may already see that writing on the wall - PS2 (PS3, 4, etc?), X-Box, Game Cube, etc. ONLINE. The network adaptors are already out for these. PC gaming will never go away however.
I am sure EA will be there. I will be..."
 Thread @ Needforbetterspeed.net
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