When current president of EA Sports Peter Moore left Microsoft for a chance to team up with the most powerful game publisher in the world last year, gamers were stunned at the news given Moore's strong track record of delivering successful campaigns.

However, the news is by no means a step back for the 52 year-old industry veteran who also happens to be the spokesperson for the most recognized brand name in sports video-games history.

Sports Joystick had the opportunity to sit down with Moore at the recently concluded E3 2008 in Los Angeles, California to discuss everything from current developments in the EA Sports brand and intentions for the sports genres heading into 2009.

Our exclusive video-interview and transcript, with the help of our friends from Coin-Op TV, can be found below:

VIDEO INTERVIEW:

---

INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT:

RA: Ray Almeda, Editor in Chief (Sports Joystick)

PM: Peter Moore, President (EA Sports)

SJ: Hey guys, this is Ray Almeda from Sports Joystick and we're here with Peter Moore, head (President) of EA Sports. First off, congratulations to your Boston Celtics - New NBA Champions. (You gotta go with that).

PM: We were just saying last night that we were one interception away in the Super Bowl from having the Celtics, the Red Sox, and the Patriots from being the World Champions at the same time.

SJ: A little Boston monopoly going on there right? A Boston Three-Party. Now tell me quickly more about your international presence. Obviously, you want to take EA Sports and bring the brand more outside of the United States - at least with games like EA Rugby and Cricket. Tell me a little bit more about how this has changed ever since you've wanted to make it a focus.

PM: Well, we've done both Rugby and Cricket games in the past. We have not really got them on a regular cadence of every 18 months we're delivering Rugby and it's been sporadic at best. We are going to be in Leipzig in mid-August talking about our international business. We are scheduled to make some announcements then about things that I think (show) how serious we are about the globalization of EA Sports.

We love what we do here in North America, but when we travel abroad, we think - for better or worse - that we are typified by one game and one game only, and that's FIFA. And as much as we love our great FIFA game, we need to broaden that reach into consumers to - obviously with the amount of soccer fans in this world and we do very well with that - also appoint Rugby and Cricket fans (if you're in India, you better have Cricket). And different sports experiences that may or not even be fully licensed or simulated.

Some of the stuff we're doing with FaceBreaker, of which you can play anywhere, everybody loves to smack the crap out of somebody and that plays as well in France as it does in the United States.

SJ: One of the main things that you announced at the EA Press Conference was the integration of DNA with the NBA Live games. Tell me about how you guys came up with the information about those particular metrics and stuff like that.

PM: Dynamic DNA feeds into our tagline what we call 'Made Fresh Daily'. In other words, where we look at where the game's going now, the ability for us to replicate in real-time what happened the night before. Maybe something like when a mid-season trade happens is now a reality. There is a company we work with and we're working with them exclusively that provides real-time data overnight to us for what we look at as behaviors and tendencies - not only for the players - but also the way the teams react.

You've got Player DNA, which we showed at the press conference on Monday, as well as (as we showed) the Celtics and the addition of KG and Ray Allen in particular coming to the team; it transformed the team overnight from a middle of the table team - one that didn't perform for many, many years (nearly two decades) to a real contender and obviously ultimately the champion. The ability for us to be able to deliver a really meaningful game-changing product such as Dynamic DNA is powered by the amount of statistical analysis you now see coming out of the real game itself.

SJ: I know one of the things that you're also having with the Wii is All-Play, which is great, because I'm a big Wii gamer, playing things such as Wii Sports with friends and having that party-atmosphere.

Another peripheral that Nintendo has is the balance board. How do you guys plan to implement EA Sports functionality into the balance board (You already have Skate It). But you also announced maybe a Fitness Game that you were working on. Are there any updates on that?

PM: Skate It is a great example, the team EA is working on it and intregrating the balance board into the Skate games, the next game obviously Skate It (Wii). We're learning a lot out of that from the dev kit and how to make that work.

We are looking very seriously at the health/wellnessa and fitness space and seeing where EA Sports comes to play. We won't just throw a game out there obviously just to be part of the party itself, but we're looking and studying and seeing - talking to people on the fitness board - how often they use it. Seeing quite frankly what is missing from the experience that Nintendo is delivering for them already with Wii Fit. As we do that analysis, then we'll ascertain whether there's a place for us to play. It's probably a no-brainer where EA Sports, at some point, comes to play in the world of fitness. We're doing our research and making sure we're doing our homework.

SJ: Now one thing that we've asked our Kombo.com readers about EA Sports in general has been more along the fact of exclusivity with the NFL license and possibly other licenses in the future. One thing we asked them to do was bring in their questions, and what consistency came up was the quality of EA games. The fact that there's no competition for these games with license exclusivity and the fact that there's no competition to dictate a fine line how quality games should be made at the very basis of it. What would you respond to these gamers that have that on their minds?

PM: Whether we have an exclusive license or not, quality is job 'one', (to paraphrase Ford Motor Company). The ability for us to be able to deliver a consistently improving game every year is also the ability for us to maintain our business model. If we're not delivering quality every year, if we're not pushing forward, then the consumer will typically vote with their wallet and they're not going to buy the game.

I can tell you - we sit here this week at E3 - we shipped NCAA Football on Tuesday and we're looking now at MetaCritic ratings of an increase of ten points year on year. So we're seeing MetaCritic ratings anywhere from 80 to 85, even in some instances of the low 90's, which for a sports game is a interesting treatment. I would be disappointed now if NCAA Football - once all the reviews are in - didn't end up in the mid-80s at least. We've got a couple of outliers sometimes that bring the score down, but to have scores in the 85's overall is great testament to quality and also is a good precursor to where Madden will probably end up in a few weeks also.

SJ: Another thing that's actually more of a wild-card when you think about it is this rumored deal of EA potentially taking over Take-Two or 2K Sports. Potentially if that were to happen, how would that affect the EA Sports business with you guys taking over 2K Sports (a competitor) as well?

PM: Obviously, we made a fair and equitable offer to Take-Two - with 2K Sports as part of that - and we're still working through that. We're in a position where an offer is on the table and once that's consumated then we'll start talking about how things like 2K Sports - and the IP's that come out of there - how we would integrate that. But there's nothing to talk about yet because there's no deal done.

SJ: Is there a timetable on when EA would like to get something done? Is that something you've heavily pursuing right now or are you taking a wait-and-see approach with Take-Two?

PM: We've got an offer on the table and that offer hasn't changed. We think that it's a fair offer considering Take-Two's stock price today and simply becomes a question of hope that people see sense in this and understand the power of what EA brings when you have even more great IP's such as Take-Two has.

SJ: Another thing that I see interesting in terms of last year was the fact that Madden versions - the 360 having 60 frames/second and the PS3 having 30 frames/second. How has that changed?

We're also looking at some of the consoles that you guys are demoing for us this week and we see a preference for the PS3 as the console of choice between the 360 and the PS3. Does that have any relation to past works with Microsoft or the PS3 being a bit more powerful?

PM: I'm sure that the console we choose is a random choice based on availability of builds. This is all unfinished software as you know. I haven't looked down there to see where it's at, but it's no reflection on any bias towards one console or the other. I think the good news is that we have continued to maintain parity between the two and not have Xbox 360 for whatever reason have the advantage. Madden being a great case; Madden's running at 60 frames as I'm sure you can see down there and looks smooth as silk. So wherever we've got the Xbox 360 version running at 60 frames, so is the PS3 version.

SJ: I'm sure you get this question a lot, but it seems to be a lot more of an interest, at least this year around. What are your thoughts on the Madden curse and what are your thoughts that Brett Favre, being on the Madden cover, could potentially come back and not even be in a (Green Bay) Packer uniform?

PM: Regarding the Madden curse, we look at history and some of the different athletes and challenges they had once they've appeared on the cover. The only thing I can tell you about the Madden curse - as you know I'm a big New England Patriots fan - is that you'll never see a Patriot right now on the cover whether you read into that at all, no Patriot on the cover of Madden.

Having said that, Brett (Favre; on the cover) is a bit of a PR dream for us because you put [that] guy on the cover and we're paying homage to his incredible work. 18 years in the NFL, 16 of them with the Green Bay Packers. It's a touch place to play in Green Bay; it's not like you're playing in a dome, yet he never [really] missed a game at all. We thought that it was a great thing to do with the great license of the NFL to put Brett on the cover. We also worried a little bit that Brett would go off to Mississippi and we'd never hear from him again, but as clear as the case, that isn't happening.

In regards towards going to a different team, it seems like a day by day situation. I actually feel bad for everybody. Brett clearly wants to come back. You feel bad for Aaron Rodgers (Ed: the current starting quarterback). And you feel bad for Packer fans, because they don't know where to go. They don't know where to put their allegiance behind Rodgers and forget Brett or [jokingly] wish that Rodgers would trip over a banana skin on his way back to practice. You also feel bad for the Packers organization who thought that they were probably retiring a jersey on August 12th and probably don't know if that's going to happen anymore. But good news is that people are talking about Brett Favre everyday and more good news is that we have him on the cover of our game.

SJ: I'm a golfer. A big golfer. Actually a 15-handicap. Would you say that I'm a better golfer than you?

PM Absolutely. Actually when talking about hiring practices, anybody who's a better handicap of 24; I typically won't hire them because clearly I know where they're spending their time. But at 15, I'll let you and your employees make the choice of whether to keep your head. You have to play a couple times a week to keep it at 15 I'm sure right?

SJ: Right.

PM: Now when do you work?

SJ: [Chuckles] Weekends. Definitely weekends. [Laughs]

PM: I don't play golf very often. I wish I had more time to play golf, but with Tiger Woods PGA Tour 09, I can play golf anytime I like in the comfort of my own living room. Whether it's the 360 or PS3 version, I can take all of that high definition glory of all those courses and of course with my Wii version I can take on you with a handicap of 15 as you saw as I 'toasted' Natalie Gulbis on stage on Monday. It evens the playing fields (for the Wii). That's why we call it 'All-Play,' all can play.

SJ: Definitely. Now for Tiger Woods, one of the things in my playing experiences back in the late 90's was that I really, really wanted 'Augusta' there (Ed: course of the Masters Championship, a PGA major tournament) and it's never been there, at least, not discussed. More golfers that actually play the game would always like to see an Augusta course on there. Has there been any development on talks with the course or people that run that course, anything like that in implementing into a Tiger Woods game in the future?

PM: We are in constant conversations. We've had a relationship with the PGA Tour; I think going back 18 years. It's probably one of our longest licenses. And you can imagine that we've built strong relationships with all of the major courses and the major clubs not only in the United States but also around the world. August is one of them and we do talk to them. We are very aware that we have a great relationship with the folks down there [at Augusta] and if there's anything to announce... no.

SJ: Nothing yet?

PM: [Firm]... No.

SJ: Would you like to have it in a Tiger Woods game?

PM: Well, the Masters is a tremendous tournament that [for me] always indicates that spring has sprung. But, we're having conversations. There's a lot of things I would like in a lot of games, but there's nothing to announce about Augusta and the Masters.

SJ: Have these conversations gone beyond what had been discussed in the past? I'm a big Augusta guy!

PM: [Laughs] Clearly! Nothing to announce about Augusta. We know the folks. The world's greatest golf course from an aesthetics point of view... but nothing to announce.

SJ: How about ESPN integration lately? It seems like ESPN has been integrated a lot more alongside the Madden games a little bit here and there on the other licenses, but what's your relationship with ESPN at this point in gaming?

PM: We obviously have a great relationship with ESPN and it's interesting. I see ESPN and their broadcast getting closer to the video-game experience, and we're obviously getting a little closer to the broadcast experience. You're seeing the two interfaces really starting to come together. I actually went to the ESPY's last night (Ed: ESPN's annual award ceremony) as courtesy of my friends from ESPN and was talking with one of their senior producers afterwards about what I thought was some of the more interesting things for the year 2008.

First off, gorgeous broadcast definition coming out of Austria and Switzerland. ESPN as you know devoted several hundred hours for the broadcast of Euro 2008 (Ed: European Soccer Tournament), but I'm not sure if you saw any of the games. There was this ESPN Access, which was this 360-degree, clearly based on the cameras of video-game technology that allows you to freeze the action and then move the camera around to see a sort of a faking photograph/moving it. But the ability for consumers to look at it in kind of a video-game interface was very clear. So, yes, great relationship with our friends at ESPN, even deeper integration as consumers expect now of what the broadcast interface looks like and a closer relationship with ESPN to the video-game genre as they start to use technologies and tactics that consumers are used to seeing in video-games.

SJ: What would you say is yor biggest accomplishment at EA since you've started the job and if you had to maybe change a particular thing since you started, what would that change be?

PM: Biggest accomplishment was consistently finding the bathroom without having to ask. Actually, I take that back. Actually getting off the corporate executive floor very quickly and stumbling over a door one day and realizing that there was a sports bar in the 250 building.

SJ: A celebrity sports bar right?

PM: Yes, a celebrity bar and blowing the dust off that bar and actually renovating it. We now have a full-blown sports bar. [Firmly] By far, that's my biggest achievement at EA. By far.

SJ: And of course, one thing you wanted to change that could've been improved since you started.

PM: The fact that we have no draft beer in the sports bar.

SJ: Really?

PM: It's all bottled beer and a complex situation that I'm working through with my people, but we just can't get draft beer in the sports bar. That is the thing that I would really, really want to change.

SJ: Last question here, this is the biggest question that the readers have asked: What do you eat for breakfast?

PM: I'm a bad boy! Breakfast is - and don't you follow me on this - the most important meal of the day... Double-Tall Non-Fat Latte.

SJ: Really?

PM: [Grins] Um... Yeah!

SJ: Nothing edible?

PM: We have a great gym at EA at Redwood Shores and I will go early at 6:00-6:15am where I'll go for a run in the mornings, but I'm not a huge breakfast guy. What happens with my mornings is that I get to EA in Redwood Shores if I'm in town at 6:15am and go to the gym or go for a run (near Oracle).

SJ: I'm from the Bay Area. Big Warriors fan here.

PM: Not Oracle Arena, but Oracle the company, run by Larry Ellison! But go Warriors. What are you going to do about BD (Ed: Former Warrior Baron Davis, who left for his hometown LA Clippers)?

SJ: [Depressingly] We'll have to talk about that after the interview I guess.

PM: But yeah, not a big breakfast guy. I shouldn't be a role model for all the young children out there because you absolutely should have your breakfast before you go to school.

SJ: Kids, listen to Peter Moore, he certainly knows his breakfast. Alright! So that's our interview with Mr. Peter Moore, head of EA Sports. Peter, I thank you for being on the show.

PM: My pleasure! Thank you! Good luck with everything!