What did the team learn from the experience in developing Head Coach 09? Is there an area that you wished you had either focused on more or done differently?

I think we all learned a lot. As I mentioned before, I’ve learned so much over the years from other designers at EA and from designing features in Franchise Mode that I was able to apply in this game. I think the only thing I would have liked to do differently is take the Madden ’09 graphics engine. They did an amazing job and Head Coach would look so much better with their changes. Other than that, I would say that I’m happy with how things turned out. I wish we could have squeezed in a little bit more tuning, but every designer always wants that. I could go on tuning this game forever. At some point, it’s got to ship.

What about the game are you the most proud?

I think we’re all proud of the difference between the first game and this one. As I said before, when people are playing the game until 5am, we’ve succeeded. I also think we’ll change some minds about the need for depth sports games in the market. There’s something about playing for hours at a time that will never get old.

Is it a challenge to blend graphics with gameplay in a game like Head Coach? It's one thing for a text sim to display the results of a play as something like, "Halfback gains 3 yards." But in Head Coach it has to look like a realistic 3 yards, as well.

I don’t think it was much of a challenge, to be honest with you. Madden’s gameplay engine (which we started from) is amazing and it allowed us to modify the game to play like we wanted it to. That was a huge plus for us. And it think a game like Head Coach presents a completely different football game experience than what people have been used to over the years. I can’t tell you how many times I was nervous on that big third down in the 4th quarter. Genuinely nervous. And if I got it, I was jumping up and down celebrating. There’s a big difference when you’re not controlling the players…You’re always on the edge of your seat!

Is the current plan for Head Coach to see a yearly release ala Madden? If Head Coach is to see future releases is there an area that you'd like to focus on for future versions? I know you can't talk about specific features, but just in general.

I don’t know. That decision comes from way above me. If we were to do another version, we’d really like to focus on in-game even more as well as continue the theme of fun, interactive features out of game. We’ve built the foundation for the game, so we’d just have to use our imaginations.

If Head Coach succeeds could it, in your opinion, open the door for other sports? I know a lot of people want Head Coach College Football…

Definitely. I think a game like this could be made for all sports. Coaches and their decisions fascinate fans on every level. I think any sport would translate well to the Head Coach experience!

We'd like to thank Josh for taking the time to chat with us. NFL Head Coach 09 is on store shelves now.