We have just posted our interview Sean O’Brien, Producer of
NCAA March Madness 07. EA Sports has also sent us five exclusive screenshots to go along with it.
Operation Sports: Why is the game being released so late and only on Xbox 360 and PS2?
Sean O’Brien: We wanted to ship NCAA March Madness at a more relevant time in the college basketball season. Mid-January is right in the heart of conference play and is close to when college basketball interest in at it’s highest – February/March of each year when conference tournaments have started and the Road to the Final Four is about to get under way. We’ve shipped in November the last few years and felt that the title gets lost in the holiday season with all of the big sports titles as well as other big licensed products or IP coming out at that time. We shipped a downloadable demo for the 360 in November to give our consumers a taste of what to expect in 07.
Operation Sports: How would you compare the final version with the current demo available on the Marketplace? While the game looks good, the button commands seem to be lagging a bit.
Sean O’Brien: The demo that we released is no where near the quality of the final version. We released that demo 2 full months before we finaled the game. We wanted to give our consumers who were expecting NCAA March Madness in November, a taste of what was to come as well as an opportunity to be a part of our “Replay” advertising campaign. In the final product, you’ll notice improvements in gameplay, performance, some visuals, in game audio and of course, you’ll have the opportunity to enjoy the new features and innovation that appear in Dynasty Mode.