EA Sports announced the development of their own MMA game at the E3 Videogame Trade show. UFC’s deal with THQ is exclusive through 2011, but there’s plenty of top fighters in the UFC that aren’t in the game and non-UFC fighters to make a go of it. The first official fighter announcement is Randy Couture, who is notably absent from the UFC Undisputed 2009 fighter roster. Here’s the E3 announcement of the new title:

And here’s an interview with EA Sports President Peter Moore which dicusses the forthcoming MMA title among other things:

CL: The first thing I want to talk about is the announcement of a new franchise, EA Sports MMA. And I wanted to clear something up before I get into questions: THQ’s license with UFC is exclusive through 2011, right?

PM: I don’t know what the terms of their deal are, and we obviously respect that, but there’s a huge opportunity in a fast growing sport. We can bring the EA Sports style we have proven with things like Fight Night; we can focus on quality, investing in physics engines and getting the style and gameplay right. We recognize how important the UFC license, but it’s not a barrier for entering long term. This is a long term commitment

CL: So what kind of complications does that create when you’ve got a league that’s almost synonymous with the sport in the way people say Coke instead of soda or Kleenex instead of tissue?

PM: For years, Konami challenged us with Pro Evo Soccer, with no licenses in some countries and a mix of generic and semi-licensed product and did it on gameplay. We’ve come back hard and started to dominate soccer. I don’t see any reason why we can’t build a challenger to the UFC license game. I recently attended a Strike Force card in San Jose — 14,000 people, Showtime covering it live. UFC is an important part of the overall MMA scene, but there’s room for a company like ourselves to come in and grow the overall pie. THQ probably would relish some competition because it would put even more spotlight on the sport.

CL: Have you guys taken a look at the THQ game to try and get a sense of what you can improve upon and get a leg up on the competition?

PM: This is the latest in a number of UFC games. Our team that has been assembled that is working on this is made up of MMA fans. They get the sport, they’re inside the culture, a number of them on the team train for it. We’ve also worked retroactively on the game. And yes, of course when the game shipped from THQ, we got the game, tore it apart to find what it should be and finding where we can make a difference. It won’t work shipping our own version of Undisputed.

EA Sports President Peter Moore interview @ Sporting News