Ben-DutkaFrom a financial standpoint, big publishers have to keep producing titles for the current generation of consoles.
And that's exactly what Electronic Arts plans to do. Speaking during the UBS Global Technology Conference this week, EA CFO Blake Jorgensen said that his company will continue to support current-gen platforms "for many years to come." That's to be expected, isn't it?
"How do you do both last-generation and new generation at the same time? Doing a new generation set of titles is always going to be a challenge, but we're also trying to produce [current-generation] titles and we'll be producing [current-generation] titles for many years to come."
Jorgensen added that he believes consumers will continue to purchase current-gen consoles for a while, and EA also expects the prices of those systems to start falling pretty soon. This often brings new people into the gaming market, which is always healthy for the ever-growing industry. As for striking a good balance between dedicating resources to the "old" and new consoles, Jorgensen said:
"You can't put all your talent on [next-generation consoles], because you still have to develop good [current-generation] games, and we're trying to make sure that we have a great experience for consumers across all platforms."
The PS3 and Xbox 360 have sold about 80 million units each and the Wii has sold around 100 million. A huge publisher like EA can't hope to make their money back on gigantic projects when there are only a few million PS4 and Xbox One owners. It takes some time before such publishers focus exclusively on a new generation; four and five years, even.
They will release Battlefield 5 on next gen and Battlefield Bad Company 3 on current gen. Then they will abandon current gen.
No way EA would leave all that money on the table.
I think this is a recipe for disaster. You may need to make games for old systems to keep making money but if the big titles remain cross gen for too long interest will fade from established franchises. People will perceive you as old and out of touch. And EA already has a record for killing good franchises quickly.
It may be financially infeasible, but I would really hope that this doesn't mean they'll be producing cross-gen games for years upon years. Seriously, next-gen needs to be next-gen and that can't happen effectively if the games have to be made to run on the current gen too.
That would be terrible…. I guess we'll see once the new Dragon age comes into scope.
Then again I don't buy much of anything in the way of EA and it seems other publishers are very enthusiastic about next gen with comments like smoother development on the ps4 versus the ps3 – so I'm not overly worried.
yeah no i totally agree with all of what u guys say but i guess we're gunna be getting half ass next gen ports for awhile unless is battlefield which is high end PC anyways so ps4 of that won't so bad but as for the rest if they are mainly console ariented games we aren't likely to be getting gud ps4 games for awhile (if ever it seems like it aye) we'll have to wait and see but i we don't see enough improvement between the ps3 and ps4 versions i'm not gunna lie i'll be anoiyed and frustrated and angry i just think and i think i speak for most of us that that just ain't gud enough.
they can make games for the ps3 and 360 but give us gud next gen(ps4) games other wise like ben and all you guys said we'll get sick of crappy ports relative to the hardware capabilites of the ps4 and such things
happy gaming =)
sigh, the typical gotta have all your eggs in every basket.
one day companies will wake up and realize oops weve run out of eggs.
Wise move until inevitably SONY flashes the porch light on and off.