FIFA 14: Ultimate Team player upgrades

by Luke Adcock
This season's edition of mid-season upgrades on FIFA Ultimate Team have been released by EA Sports, with over 50 players getting a boost in their in-game stats.

Here are some of the more notable upgrades!

Defenders

Jerome Boateng 81 > 83
Mehdi Benatia 82 > 84
Per Mertesacker 80 > 82
Laurent Koscielny 81 > 83
Seamus Coleman 72 > 76
Luke Shaw 70 > 73
Midfielders
Ross Barkley 72 > 77
Andros Townsend 72 > 74
Ravel Morrison 68 > 74
Felipe Melo 80 > 82
Antoine Griezmann 80 > 82
Paul Pogba 79 > 81
Aaron Ramsey 77 > 81


Forwards

Adnan Januzaj 61 > 73
Christian Benteke 79 > 81
Romelu Lukaku 77 > 80
Luis Suarez 86 > 88
Daniel Sturridge 80 > 82

These players are in packs now on Ultimate Team and have seen huge price increases, so if you get your hands on one you're sure in for a treat!

Just as an example, the new Januzaj is going for over 150k... now that's what I call an upgrade.

Some players have also seen position change, such as Januzaj's RM > LM, and Pogba's CDM > CM.

There are more upgrades scheduled to be released at the end of the month.

Xbox One and PS4 fail to qualify for 2014 FIFA World Cup

EA Sports has confirmed that its 2014 FIFA World Cup video game will not be available on the next-generation consoles.

The FIFA 14 spin-off due out in time for the summer showpiece will be exclusive to the Xbox 360 and Sony PS3, meaning Xbox One and PS4 owners will miss the chance to guide their country to World Cup glory.

Explaining its decision, the publisher said FIFA 14 players can still experience the World Cup in Ultimate Team mode, but wanted the focus to be on the previous-generation offerings.

A statement reads: "For our fans on the new generation of consoles and playing FIFA 14, we will have a range of engaging content, promotions and tournament within FIFA Ultimate Team so that those fans can experience the World Cup in unique and fun ways."

Laser focus

The company said it wanted to create a 'great game,' within its available resources, which would be available within to as many people as possible.

In a lengthy statement, it explained: "When we made the decision we considered a number of factors but most importantly we wanted to create a great game within our development resources that could reach as many people as possible and the way to do that was make our best game yet on Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.

"We gave our team the mandate of setting a laser focus on building the highest quality game for Xbox 360 and PS3 they could, and that's exactly what they are doing."

Seeing as, judging by the company's previous, the World Cup game will simply be an international football-focused version of the regular game, it's unlikely to upset too many folks, but EA's rationale is interesting nonetheless.