PlayStation Hurts Ronaldinho's Performance Once More

from the goooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooool dept

Tue, Dec 9th 2008 4:42am — Carlo Longino

During the 2006 World Cup, Brazilian soccer star Ronaldinho made some headlines after his poor performance in the quarterfinal, when Brazil lost to France, was blamed on all-night sessions of sex and PS2 games. Supposedly his game of choice was EA Sports' FIFA 2006 soccer game, so it's slightly amusing to see an opposing goalkeeper credit a save he made on a Ronaldinho free kick last weekend to playing soccer games on his PlayStation. The goalie says that the game features a solid replication of Ronaldinho's penalty-taking style, giving him an idea of how to react in real life. As games become more and more realistic, more and more athletes and teams might start using them as scouting tools. Indeed, another soccer team recently signed a deal with the developer of a management simulation game to get exclusive access to its full database in order to help it identify new talent from around the world.

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Filed Under: playstation, ronaldinho, video games

11 Comments

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Peavey, 9 Dec 2008 @ 5:33am

awesome
All I can say is, this is totally awesome.

I love the super realistic sports games. I swear to God, when I play the newest NHL offering on PS3 I feel like I'm watching a real life hockey game.
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Skeptical Cynic (profile), 9 Dec 2008 @ 6:34am

And I am so glad that I went back to college
to get a degree in Simulation Programming!!

My future career field is going expand more and more with successes like this!
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hegemon13, 9 Dec 2008 @ 7:08am

Taking it a bit far...
Okay, I agree the simulations are becoming more accurate, but a scouting tool? I seriously doubt it. You are not seeing an actual player in the game. Rather, you are seeing a programming team's interpretation of the player based on stats. Those stats are readily available to coaches and managers, so why go through the hassle of using the game? Plus, you would have to reach a pretty high skill level with the game in order to appreciate the nuances between players. I doubt many coaches/managers have that kind of free time on their hands.
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Anonymous Coward, 9 Dec 2008 @ 7:13am

Re: awesome
Of course, you playing games on consoles makes your opinion valueless.
That on top of "swearing to god" and having any interest in hockey.
Have a great day.......
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Squard, 9 Dec 2008 @ 8:39am

game programmers have no clue
Ronaldinho, LeBron James, Peyton Manning and Derek Jeter are all athletes that might be well represented in video games. But what about the athletes that aren't celebrities? Suppose an unknown bench warmer took that penalty shot for Brazil?

Those athletes will never get the correct representation in games. Most of time, their names aren't even pronounced correctly. So why would someone scout via a game, when they can't spot out the "diamonds in rough"?
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Anonymous Coward, 9 Dec 2008 @ 10:19am

Re: Re: awesome
So, where would making snarky comments on someone's harmless posting put your opinion?

Have a craptastic day.
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Anonymous Coward, 9 Dec 2008 @ 10:22am

Re: game programmers have no clue
quite the contrary.

With the new games constantly tweaking player abilities to match their ongoing stats, I would imagine that setting up scenarios could reveal trends and tendencies in emerging players.

While I feel it will never be a full substitute for real scouting, I do feel it could be helpful.
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snowburn14, 9 Dec 2008 @ 11:17am

Re: Taking it a bit far...
"Those stats are readily available to coaches and managers, so why go through the hassle of using the game?"

Yeah, 'cuz we all know how much easier it is to (properly) analyse statistics than to play a video game...
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ehrichweiss, 9 Dec 2008 @ 12:20pm

Re: And I am so glad that I went back to college
You went to COLLEGE for that!?!? Dude, by the time you get outta college, the technology is ancient.
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Soccer Fan, 9 Dec 2008 @ 2:06pm

Skills
I bet known (good) players have accurate stats on games, and fairly unknown players simply have low and random stats, absolutely not accurate.

I don't think the game company would put some amount of money to have the exact skills of each player on each team around the world.

So... If I managed a soccer team, I wouldn't put a dime to have this stats to "data mine" some good lil boys.
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Lawrence D'Oliveiro, 9 Dec 2008 @ 3:42pm

Re: And I am so glad that I went back to college
ehrichweiss wrote:

You went to COLLEGE for that!?!? Dude, by the time you get outta college, the technology is ancient.

So what's the alternative? It takes about as long to develop a state-of-the-art commercial game as it does to get a University degree. Possibly even longer. So by the time you've finished the product, the technology you used to create it is already ancient too. Doesn't matter where you go, there's no escaping that fact.
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