Alright, let me clear up a few things. First off, I think some of the answers I gave ESPN were either a bit distorted or came out the wrong way. I, in no way, intended to slam 2k. I have a tremendous amount of respect for the guys over there and consider many of them to be my close friends. Here are the points I was trying to communicate in some of those "quotes" that have been debated on OS the past couple of days:
1. 2k porting from old gen and covering up problems with animation. 2k and EA obviously chose 2 very different paths when moving from the last gen of consoles to the current. given the resources at 2k, porting the old gen code up to 360/PS3 and re-writing "chunks" of the game each year was probably the best strategy for the team. it allowed us to shove in a great deal of content without having to rebuild the game from scratch. however, I was admittedly frustrated with several aspects of 2k's gameplay while I was there. And for reasons I don't want to delve into, they just weren't getting fixed. I wouldn't say we tried to cover up those problems with animation... but the animation work we were doing certainly did mask some of the flaws or at least let many consumers look passed them. so one of the reasons I approached EA, was because I felt that Live wasn't suffering from those same problems and I saw a tremendous upside with the game they were building. and I believe, between the 2 games, Live is actually better positioned for me to reach my goal of making the ultimate hoops sim. and that's something I hope you guys will see as well next fall.
2. the window dressing comment. what I meant by that was, 2k does a good job differentiating players via animation. IMO, that's 2k's biggest strength. but there wasn't really a huge commitment to differentiating players via the under the hood logic. Live, on the other hand, is just the opposite. there is so much logic in the underlying systems to try and get players to play like their real life counterparts. I mean, that's the primary goal of Dynamic DNA. but the animation component just isn't up to par yet. I don't want a game that has one and not the other because it'll either be pretty and stupid, or ugly and smart. our goal with Live 10 is to make sure that we capture both the look as well as the brains.