NCAA Football Headlines

In an article from the Orlando Sentinel's Walter Pacheco, EA Tiburon is now utilizing new technology to aid in capturing realistic and authentic environments for NCAA Football, Tiger Woods PGA Tour, and other franchises.

Developed locally, the new Focus3D scanner from FARO Technologies allows for the capture of environments while also being travel friendly. Continue on to read an excerpt of Pacheco's article on the scanner. ...

After adding school-specific chants for 20+ programs in NCAA Football 13, Kotaku's Owen Good reports that NCAA 14 will feature real crowd audio from 40 total stadiums. Last weekend, Good aided NCAA producer Ben Haumiller in recording game audio at North Carolina, Duke, and NC State.

In addition to the three North Carolina schools listed above, EA SPORTS has made known resource gathering visits this season to South Alabama, Texas A&M, and will be at Texas State this weekend.

Continue on to read an excerpt of Good's experience and to learn more about the process of adding these school specific audio details to the franchise.

UPDATE - Sunday evening, another article from Good ("Understanding Its Mobs’ Mentality Helps NCAA Football Stand Out in a Crowd") discusses how in real-life crowds sound different at each stadium and that it has yet to be reflected in NCAA Football. ...

An article from Kotaku's Owen Good echoes much of the communities feelings on the NCAA Football series... not enough changes from year to year. That is, nothing is innovative and distinguishes itself from a previous version.

As part of that article, Good reveals that shortly after launch, the NCAA 13 development team was presented with a creative debriefing asking them to guess from various screenshots from NCAA 10 through NCAA 13 which one belonged to each year. The presenter didn't receive an answer.

Continue after the break for a quick breakdown of the article as well as my thoughts. The article itself is worth a read and is linked at the bottom. ...

This past weekend, EA SPORTS visited College Station and Texas A&M University to gather team-related assets for NCAA Football 14, per tweets from TAMU Assistant Vice President of Business Development Shane Hinckley and from the TAMU Equipment Staff.

Tweets from both A&M-related accounts highlight the Yell Leaders being captured and also the A&M locker room. Based upon current in-game assets and features, it is possible - but far from confirmed - that this information could be used for pre-game cutscenes or crowd chants during gameplay in NCAA Football 14 or beyond. NCAA Football 13 saw the addition of Reveille to A&M's pre-game montage.

This marks the second known university to be visited by EA SPORTS this off-season, following a trip to South Alabama in early October. Continue on to see the tweets from Hinckley and the A&M Equipment Staff. ...

The second update to the NCAA Football 13 Uniform Store is now available. The updates include alternate uniforms for the Nebraska, Wisconsin, and Notre Dame. The Nebraska and Wisconsin uniforms will be for their matchup against each other this Saturday (9/29). The Notre Dame uniform is for their Shamrock Series against Miami in Chicago on October 6th. The cost for the three uniforms is $1.99 or 160MSP.

Continue after the break to check out images. ...

NCAA Football's premier fan event, the EA SPORTS NCAA Football Challenge Tour, a mobile videogame tour with Electronic Arts Inc., kicks off today with a campus competition at San Jose State.

The Challenge Tour, which features EA SPORTS™ NCAA® Football 13, will make its way across the country from September through November stopping at 16 college campuses for videogame competitions, including San Jose State, Arizona State, the University of New Mexico, the University of Colorado, SMU, TCU, the University of Oklahoma, Kansas State, the University of Nebraska, Northern Illinois, LSU, the University of Louisville, the University of Tennessee, Virginia Tech, the University of Virginia, and the University of Maryland. Winners from each campus competition will win a $1,000 prize and qualify for the championship bracket to be played online. The two semi-finalists of the online tournament will earn their spot on a trip to a post-season bowl game to compete for the national title and grand prize of $5,000.

In addition to the 16 campus competitions, the Challenge Tour will stop at nine college football gamedays, visiting all 11 Division I FBS conferences for the first time.

Continue on for the 2012 EA SPORTS NCAA Football Challenge Tour Schedule, featuring all campus competitions and gameday events. ...

As part of Patch #2, the Uniform Store was unveiled only was empty. However, users can now begin downloading updated uniforms to use in the game on both X-Box 360 & PS3. Twenty-three uniforms are included in the free pack including the Oregon uniform pictured above. Additional uniforms for Notre Dame & Michigan in the Adidas Strategy pack will cost you 80 MSP/$1 PSN.

Continue after the break for a look at each of the new uniforms.
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Courtesy al.com, EA SPORTS is visiting South Alabama this weekend as they begin prep work on adding the Jaguars to NCAA Football 14.

South Alabama may not be in the game just yet, as the EA Sports advertisement for its "NCAA Football 13'' game suggests, but EA Sports will be in Ladd-Peebles Stadium for the Jaguars' game Saturday against Nicholls State. In fact, the popular game company has been in the stadium since Thursday, collecting data, photographic and video scans and interviews for South Alabama's inclusion in the video game next year.

Due to "misinformation,'' according to site producer Ben Haumiller, the Jags were left out of this year's game, the only one of the 124 eligible Football Bowl Subdivision teams not to be included. When news reached South Alabama students and fans prior to the release of "NCAA Football 13,'' several requested the Jags be added to the game. It was too late to add USA to this year's game, but EA Sports offered to make it up to the school by providing extras for the Jags when they are added to the roster of teams in next year's game. ...

The start of the 2012-13 college football season is almost here! Before the season starts on Thursday night, make sure to sign up for The Gaming Tailgate's College Pick 'Em and College Football Challenge on ESPN.com.

To celebrate the start of the season, TGT will provide the week one winner (leader) for each fantasy game with a copy of the NCAA Football 13 Strategy Guide, courtesy of our friends at Prima.

Continue on for sign-up info for each fantasy game. ...

Madden NFL 13 will be available beginning Friday at 6 PM ET for EA SPORTS Season Ticket subscribers with the retail launch on August 28.

Highlighted by Connected Careers and the new Infinity Engine, Madden NFL 13 may be the most anticipated edition of the franchise in years. Once you play the game, share your thoughts and impressions on the game here with the community. ...

Chris Erb, EA SPORTS Vice President of Brand Marketing, tweeted the following earlier today:

"Unlock exclusive EA SPORTS @EANCAAFootball content on Reese's Cups! pic.twitter.com/xrZ0b1NJ"



UPDATE 8/21 - Continue on to see the complete list of prizes and contest rules. ...

The second NCAA Football 13 Game Update is now available on both XBL & PSN. While an early blog from NCAA Football Lead Producer Jason French detailed some of the improvements planned at that time, more game update details have been announced.

Continue on to read the full blog from French with added game update aspects italicized. After you download the update, share your thoughts here with the community. ...

Courtesy vgchartz.com, the first three weeks of sales for NCAA Football 13 are now available. Overall, sales are down 95,000 over the same period from a year ago. Despite the second-best PS3 launch in the franchise's history, the total is dragged down by the second-worst 360 launch. In a month that saw retail game sales down 20% over the year prior, NCAA Football 13 was still the top-selling game in July.

Why the decrease? There's likely numerous factors at hand, such as the economy, gamer burnout following their experience with NCAA Football 12, and/or a portion of the populace making NCAA Football a purchase every few years and no longer annually. In addition, some in the community have stated that they believe the game is becoming stale.

While NCAA Football 13 addressed some of the major complaints from 12 (namely the Online Dynasty 'Transfer Failed'), its wide feature set lacked the depth and/or changes to numerous game areas (Coaching Carousel, Custom Conferences, TeamBuilder, Practice Mode, Online Play, et al.) along with numerous bugs and annoyances still prevalent, including some legacy issues.

Fans who relied on reviews to base their purchase decision saw the game's metacritic score drop from the year before with many reviews repeating the theme of bugs and a lack of overall differential from previous iterations.

Continue on to see the first three-week sales numbers for the PlayStation 3 and X-Box 360 versions of NCAA Football. ...

The reviews are in for NCAA Football 13 and scores range from PlayStation: The Official Magazine's 90 to Destructoid's 55. The PlayStation 3 version of the game currently has a metacritic score of 82 with the X-Box 360 version scoring a 75.

The metacritic score for NCAA Football 13 likely does not sit well with EA, where the goal is a 90 rating or higher. In June, EA's senior VP of global eCommerce, David DeMartini stated "We have this bar that is set so high, so that whether it is any of our games or services, we want to be 90 plus Metacritic at everything." Here are the last three editions final metacritic average (for PS3 & 360): NCAA Football 10: 82, NCAA Football 11: 86, NCAA Football 12: 82

Continue on to see excerpts of NCAA Football 13 reviews and let us know which review(s) you feel are dead-on and any that are dead-wrong. Afterwards, vote in our poll to share your rating of NCAA Football 13. ...

The NCAA Football team is reaching out to the community once again and wants your help in gathering team reference details for possible inclusion in future editions of the game. After asking for info on band and cannon locations in the past (all properly placed in NCAA Football 13), they now want your help in learning all of the crowd chants for every FBS program. This list will be utilized as a checklist for the team as they travel on-campus to each program in the future to record crowd audio as they build upon the crowd chants and improved crowd audio added in NCAA Football 13.

Share your team - or any team you know - info in this thread. Links to media of the chant (YouTube video, MP3, etc.) or articles/references for each chant are welcome. Post the chant and - as important - when it typically is heard during each game.

Continue on to see an example of the desired information (school, chant, when it occurs) and to share your school's chant information. ...

NCAA Football 13 Lead Producer Jason French has released details on two game updates. The first update was available on July 31st and the second on August 15.

Game Update #1 is now available for X-Box 360 and PS3 users. If connected to XBL/PSN, simply starting the game will automatically prompt you to download the update.

Update 8/1 - A Tuner Pack has been released for both 360 and PS3 users. If connected to XBL/PSN, you'll be prompted if you would like to download it. In order to play any online games (Play Now or Online Dynasty), you'll be required to have this update. Details are immediately after the break.

Update 8/14 - The second NCAA Football 13 game update will be available on Wednesday, August 15.

Be sure to let us know any feedback regarding either the Title Update or the Tuner Pack.

Continue on to see details of the first two game updates as well as the 8/1 Tuner Pack. ...

EA SPORTS NCAA Football designer Michael Weisbecker has posted a new blog detailing the online ranking system and points earned from playing games and attaining wins, including some changes made post launch.

Continue on to read the full blog from EA SPORTS. ...

In Episode 7 of the official NCAA Football 13 Podcast: AJ, Justin, Ben and Christian talk about the upcoming Title Updates 1 & 2, the NCAA Football 13 Uniform Store and beginning the official NCAA Football 13 Podcast Online Dynasty!

Continue on after the link to listen to the episode and then share your thoughts with the community. ...

The Making of NCAA Football returns this year with two episodes covering the action behind the scenes of NCAA Football 13. Continue on to view both episodes of The making of NCAA Football 13. ...