[w1ngman smacks his forehead]...jeez, *that\'s* EA\'s PGA Tour!

Alright guys, nobody even corrected me on this one!!!  I posted the other day on a topic related to the Tiger Woods golf game and whether or not I wanted to wait for EA to put out a latest PS2 incarnation of PGA Tour.  Well, today in the store, looking at all the titles I saw the Tiger title again...and it dawned on me.  The full title of Tiger\'s golf game is Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2001.  And then it made sense...this game IS the latest incarnation of PGA Tour and EA has simply added the Tiger Woods\' name to their PGA Tour license.  Did anyone else catch this?

BTW, I visited EA\'s PS2 related website to verify my thoughts on this epiphany.  They have as good a website as they do games!  If you\'ve not seen it before, you should check it out:
http://playstation2.ea.com/main.html

LOL no, I didn\'t even notice - that makes it even more pathetic that there\'s only three courses!

Originally posted by Lavan
LOL no, I didn\'t even notice - that makes it even more pathetic that there\'s only three courses!

I have Links on my PC, paid $20 for it on Ebay, I also bought 25 bonus corses off Ebay for anither $30

Having all these replicated courses is what makes computer golf cool.

3 courses is a joke but you have to figure it\'s more to do with the time restraints the PS2 learning curve, and the fact that console golf games aren\'t huge sellers so putting in 10 courses would probably have lost EA money.

Still 3 is weak

Would have lost them money? I don\'t think so. It\'s bad enough that EA is leaving features out of their games. Rationalizing it to be a good thing is ridiculous. Granted, golf is not a huge seller, but if you review all the sports games like I do, these missing features really dilute the quality of the product. Is there any reason for a Psx version to have more features than a PS2 version? No way. Time constraints? EA has had development kits for a year and a half now.

The reason their golf games don\'t sell well is because they haven\'t made a good golf game since PGA Tour II for the Sega Genesis.  All of the TW games are crap... much less like golfing and more like playing a video game than ever before.

Each release of an EA golf game I trod down to the store, read reviews, play demos and finally rent and each time the same thing...  They\'ve simply failed to capture the essence of golf in their newer games and have relied on dropping the Tiger Woods name on the cover to sell copies.

It\'s starting to piss me off because I KNOW they can do it.  I know they can make a great golf game, they just don\'t!

Originally posted by Aaron
Would have lost them money? I don\'t think so. It\'s bad enough that EA is leaving features out of their games. Rationalizing it to be a good thing is ridiculous. Granted, golf is not a huge seller, but if you review all the sports games like I do, these missing features really dilute the quality of the product. Is there any reason for a Psx version to have more features than a PS2 version? No way. Time constraints? EA has had development kits for a year and a half now.

I still think its alot to do with learning cure of the PS2. EA has a solid grasp but you see alot of games being short or lacking early on in the PS2. To me this is just Dev\'s not over expending resources on early PS2 games. Afterall it is a business and to make a product perfect that you know won\'t sell above x amount of copies and lose you money is just bad business



I never said that this was a good thing, but from a business standpoint and the steep learning curve and dev cycles of early PS2 games the pattern is clear. Most early PS2 games lack length or features or both. ALot of these games are still great fun and I\'m liking and loving a few quite afew of them but none the less I think my reasoning makes a bit of sense

I also feel alot of 2nd gen games will lenghtier and have quite a handful of added features now that PS2 architexture familiarity is coming into play.

C\'mon ddaryl, we\'re talking about EA here, the same folks that put out Madden 2001.  Are you trying to say that game is too short or lacks features?  I think not.

Originally posted by Dolbytone
C\'mon ddaryl, we\'re talking about EA here, the same folks that put out Madden 2001.  Are you trying to say that game is too short or lacks features?  I think not.

no but Madden is a guarentee million seller

Tiger Woods Golf may sell 1/2 million.

Yes even EA produses each game to meet a certain financial target. If TW Golf is only going to make xxx money then features are going to be sacraficed that would drive up the cost of making the game


I\'m having a difficult time wondering why people can\'t understand what I\'m saying

Look at ZOE and look at Ring of Red and Look at MGS2

Ring of Red looks ok plays pretty good, but It has no voice acting and over all graphics quality and attention to detail has been sacraficed. RoR is not expected to sell anywhere near a million copies


ZOE is potential million seller bundles with MGS2 Demo probably because ZOE went over budget and this was away to guarentee it will make a profit.. It has gorgeous graphics, voice acting, FMV, and attention to detail. But the game is supposedly Onimusha short. Obviously more money went into ZOEW and its expected to sell quite a bit more the RoR

Then there\'s MGS2 a game in dev for well over 2 years by the time its released with every detail attended to, all the bells and whistles and more than likely double the gameplay content of ZOE. MGS2 is expected to sell a few million copies


The same goes for all big dev\'s. They invest money and time into a game that meets its expected slaes targets.

Tiger Woods Golf fall into this category. Madden is a higher budget larger dev team game. Tiger Woods Golf probably has half the resources as Madden and thats why there is only 3 courses IMO


I\'m just using Business logics to explain why I feel Tiger Woods Golf got the shaft when we know how much more capable EA is

ddaryl,
I understand what you\'re saying, but there are quite a few exceptions - for example Fifa 2001 has sold a truckload of copies worldwide and the Fifa series in general has been the best selling multi-format videogame series in the world over the past few years. I\'m sure Fifa 2001 worldwide has outsold Madden by a large margin because of soccer\'s popularity. My point, however, is that (contrary to the guys at IGN, DailyRetard, etc) Fifa 2001 is a piece of dog poop, both in terms of gameplay and features.

On the other hand, Konami\'s ESPN MLS GameNight which was released last year for the PSX (also known as ISS Pro Evolution) had much better features and gameplay, but sold probably (and I\'m exaggerating here) 3 copies.

Another example would be the Codemasters games like Jarret and Labonte or Colin McRae 2 - they don\'t sell a lot of copies but there\'s a truckload of hard work, dedication, enthusiasm and licencing dollars put into them.

Just because a game may not sell that many copies is not really a reason for not including many features - in many ways it\'s a self-fulfiling prophecy - EA Sports don\'t include more courses because they don\'t think a lot of people will buy the game, and the game sells poorly because it has such few courses.

EDIT: Tried to make my ramblings more coherent.

Where the **** is my post!  Never use the preview function and expect to be able to hit "back" to edit it.  I\'m pissed.

I\'ll plaigarize myself then:

Boy do I miss my old Genesis. Sure the PS2 has more games, better graphics and stuff like that, but there are some games that I had on the Genesis that aren\'t available for play on the PSX. My favorite probably being PGA Tour II. There just hasn\'t been another golf game that\'s as fun as this one was. It delivered a pure golf environment with birds and "non dizzying" realistic ball flight shots (you know, shots that are actually possible to pull off on TV), a massive statictic tracking feature, decent controls, not too easy/hard putting... this game kicked ass!  I used to put it on and play a natural sounding CD with water streaming and birds on it. The CD enhanced the real feel of the game\'s environment and sucked me in for hours and hours of golfing fun.

I wish EA would get back to basics on their golf games like they did on this title. PGA Tour II has it all over any of the Tiger Woods games. TW games have music and that cheezy Tiger control, lame-O commentary and just all around No-Fun gameplay. Never did I get the feeling that I was playing a golf course, it was always just a series of video game golf holes.  I didn\'t hear ONE BIRD on the last TW game I tortured myself with, it\'s like they gave up on trying to recreate the game of golf on a video game and instead just made a video game of golf and expected that to fly... what a shame they dropped what made their golf games fun and went with a sports figure commercialization approach.

Still waiting for a good golf game EA!

My point here ddaryl is that bells and whistles are not the issue with TW PGA games.  They just suck on a basic and fundamental level... a problem EA used to not have.  They wouldn\'t have to skip on number of courses if they\'d stuck with the good stuff because they would have been selling more copies and therefore making more money on them.  I haven\'t purchased an EA golf game since PGA Tour II because of these very issues and I find it hard to believe that I\'m the only one.

Also, I think there\'s a flaw in your logic on how much money is spent versus how much money is intended to be made on games.  You\'d think that any company would try and maximize the possibillity of a successful release, especially if they already have the resources like we all know EA does.  Handicapping it by not including features that are expected by the user doesn\'t seem logical by any business model.