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At ESPN, Play-by-Play Goes Virtual According to the NY Times, ESPN has teamed up with EA to bring Play-by-Play into the virtual world! The network, which is owned by the Walt Disney Company, has spent the last year working on a new technology with Electronic Arts, the leading game publisher, that would allow ESPN commentators to interact live with realistic-looking, three-dimensional virtual players as they pontificate about coming matches during broadcasts. Its a way for us to remain relevant, said John Skipper, ESPNs executive vice president for content. We want to make sure we remain connected to lots and lots of fans, and using the language that gamers understand is one way. Boiled down, the complex technology, which will make its debut this Sunday on ESPNs popular NFL Countdown program, involves using an Electronic Arts title say Madden NFL 09 with specialized digital camera equipment in the studio. Presto: Both real and virtual people move around the ESPN set to demonstrate plays and possible situations. And the sports behemoth has more ambitious plans down the road. Instead of using the technology, called EA Sports Virtual Playbook, to tell viewers what to look for before games, ESPN wants to use it in reverse to play the ultimate Monday morning quarterback. Using real information from a game, ESPN anchors could reprogram an actual sequence to show, for example, what would have happened had Peyton Manning thrown right instead of left. Much
is made about how various forms of media television, the Internet,
radio are all moving toward one another. And while television content
has converged into video games, Virtual Playbook offers an example of
convergence moving in the opposite direction. ESPN is bringing the look
and feel of a video game to television for the sake of interactivity,
flexibility and visual aid. For the full story, click here! Posted at 12:17PM Sep 06, 2008 by Kevin P McAuliffe in Astound | Comments[0] 
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