EA solving Kinect problem for FIFA 13

Want to play FIFA using your body as the controller? You'll have to wait a bit. EA told Eurogamer this week that Kinect support for the series isn't planned until the launch of FIFA 13 next year.

Indeed, EA is still working out how it will incorporate motion-sensing add-on Kinect into the FIFA series.

But it has promised one thing: Kinect support won't be tacked on.

"What we've learnt over the years is building anything on a platform just for the sake of it doesn't make any sense," EA Sports' senior vice president of worldwide development Andrew Wilson told Eurogamer at E3.

"So the question is, how can that platform add value?"

EA Sports president Peter Moore popped up on stage during Microsoft's E3 press conference this week to reveal three games set for Kinect support: FIFA, Madden NFL and Tiger Woods PGA Tour.

The announcement came as a surprise; only last year Moore told Eurogamer gamers shouldn't expect Kinect support in the FIFA series any time soon.

"You never say never," Moore said, "But if you ask me right now do they feel like there is obvious relevance of those technologies to the experience that is FIFA, I don't see it.

"I don't think it's a great experience. People say, 'Well why don't you just do a penalty kick?' How disruptive is that?

"It feels like a bit of a mini-game. It feels bolted on, and not quite what we think the experience should be."

"I'm not sure Peter was down on motion control," Wilson countered this week. "Peter has always been open to any experience that makes sense. In my conversations with him he's certainly not doubtful or down on it. He just asks questions like the rest of us do, like, what's the right experience?"

So, what's the right experience?

"We're going to work through the next year as we get to the following year – it's not for FIFA 12, it's for FIFA 13 – and ask, what's the right experience for Kinect? How does Kinect add value to you as a gamer who plays FIFA across platforms?"

Wilson refused to be drawn on whether EA plans to integrate Kinect into the traditional version of FIFA or create a Kinect-exclusive version instead.

"This [Kinect] is going to play a part in who you are in FIFA. To the level that that actually ends up integrated? We don't know yet. But we've got some pre-production ideas we think are kinda cool.

"We know there are gamers out there who have Kinect. They're saying, how do we, for the time we play on our Kinect, add value to our bigger world as FIFA? You tell us we can do it on our phone. You tell us we can do it on Facebook. We want to do it on Kinect as well.

"We're going to go about solving that problem."