EA: The PC is an 'extremely healthy' platform

[tyler811]

EA Games President Frank Gibeau had some good things to say about the future of PC gaming in a recent interview with Gamasutra. According to the executive, the company's overall strategy to regain market share includes a renewed focus in the platform, and noted that it was "totally conceivable" that the PC will become their biggest market in the future.

http://www.techspot.com/news/42755-ea-the-pc-is-an-extremely-healthy-platform.html

 

[Dasda]

Would love to see Madden NFL and NHL return if that is how he truly feels.

 

[Borealis7]

i'd rather let it die then see it flooded with crap EA titles

 

[frozentundra123456]

I have a feeling he is eyeing the social/casual gaming market such as Pogo (EA already) and facebook type of games, and MMOs.

I am not really interested in these. I played Bejewelled Blitz on facebook for a while because a lot of family had a competition going, but otherwise have not played any of these games. Some of my in-laws play the facebook games and POGO obsessively though.

 

[Skurge]

Is BF3 a sign of things to come. The PC is the lead platform for their engine.

 

[wuliheron]

PC gamers spent some 20 billion dollars on hardware alone last year. That's a lot of enthusiasm for a niche market and indicates as the hardware becomes cheaper more people will join in on the action and buy games. That includes legacy games that can be played on portable devices.

Instead of carrying around a phone, computer, and gameboy you'll be able to carry one device that does it all. Your kid gets bored in the backseat, just toss them the "phone". You get bored standing in line, whip out the phone and play Crysis. You want a bigger screen and more games, buy a tablet. India is working to produce the first tablet PC for $35.oo. Imagine ten years from now a $50.oo tablet PC that plays Crysis.

 

[Red Storm]

When they say the PC market will become the biggest, they are talking about crappy flash game lookalikes that can run on your grandmother's old Dell.

Casual games on Facebook are a part of the plan, but FPS, MMORPGs and other PC genres are a huge focus for the company, with games like DICE's Battlefield 3 and BioWare's Star Wars: The Old Republic coming this year. EA also has a big interest in the free-to-play model, pointing out that Battlefield: Heroes is doing very well with 368, 241 new users every month on the PC alone and now have over 7 million registered users since launch. An open beta of Battlefield Play4Free is coming to PC in April and will use the same micro-transaction structure as its predecessor.

Casual games, Free to Play (otherwise known as Pay to Win), and MMOs with the occasional "hardcore" game released in between. This is like Microsoft saying they are committed to PC gaming.

 

[Vdubchaos]

In that case "EA" why don't you make a PC game vs Console port!

 

[Gheris]

In that case "EA" why don't you make a PC game vs Console port!

Console players don't want Flash games? That would be my guess. I agree that this genius is probably targeting the Facebook game market. Or whatever MMO they decide to buy and destroy.

 

[Phokus]

Ironic statement considering EA is trying to destroy PC gaming.

 

[smackababy]

Console players don't want Flash games? That would be my guess. I agree that this genius is probably targeting the Facebook game market. Or whatever MMO they decide to buy and destroy.

They already bought an MMO: UO. That went well for them. >_>

 

[ElFenix]

They already bought an MMO: UO. That went well for them. >_>

they also bought daoc, although mythic did a pretty good job of destroying that game all on their own (NF and ToA D

 

[exar333]

It was healthy before EA started making games for it, now not so much.

 

[Monster_Munch]

I wonder why they're saying this right now. EA have been making decent money on the PC for at least 10 years with The Sims series.

 

[n7]

No thanx to them :thumbsdown:

 

[Red Hawk]

PC gamers spent some 20 billion dollars on hardware alone last year. That's a lot of enthusiasm for a niche market and indicates as the hardware becomes cheaper more people will join in on the action and buy games. That includes legacy games that can be played on portable devices.

Instead of carrying around a phone, computer, and gameboy you'll be able to carry one device that does it all. Your kid gets bored in the backseat, just toss them the "phone". You get bored standing in line, whip out the phone and play Crysis. You want a bigger screen and more games, buy a tablet. India is working to produce the first tablet PC for $35.oo. Imagine ten years from now a $50.oo tablet PC that plays Crysis.

A phone that plays...Crysis? We're still a LONG ways away from that. That's like saying 10 years ago Gameboys would play Final Fantasy X now. Perhaps devices can now, but they still cost at least $200.

 

[Pia]

"From our perspective, it's an extremely healthy platform. …"

(but we are hard at work to change that)

 

[CPA]

I agree about the comments related to social gaming, but I also think part of this is that the PC hardware continues to evolve while PS3 and the 360 are 5+ year old systems. It's the case that the programming has caught up and superseded current hardware. I believe it goes in cycles. My theory:

Hardware is introduced.
Takes time for programming to take advantage of new hardware.
Some time later, programming (ie engines, AI, etc.) techniques supersedes hardware.
Hardware manufacturers create something new.

In the PC world this cycle is much tighter, the console market it's much wider. The game companies are at a point to take advantage of next generation hardware. Consoles don't offer that and based on recent interviews the consoles won't be changing in the near future. PCs on the other have continued to increase GPU capabilities, CPU delivery and memory capacity.

 

[NinjaCat]

Would love to see Madden NFL and NHL return if that is how he truly feels.

Still play Madden 08 for the pc. PC version of Fifa is good, I don't see why they can't bring back Madden

 

[exar333]

Still play Madden 08 for the pc. PC version of Fifa is good, I don't see why they can't bring back Madden

The NFL was more exciting back then and Madden was a better game. Don't ditch it!

 

[reallyscrued]

I wonder why they're saying this right now. EA have been making decent money on the PC for at least 10 years with The Sims series.

I would give Maxis the majority of the credit for that.

I'll start to like EA again when they make a Need for Speed game that doesn't suck, something that goes back to its roots with a two lane highway, cops, a ticket system, sans the over-the-top motion blur, nitrous, the "underground" scene, retarded driving physics, etc.

Hot Pursuit 2010 was a travesty, it was just Paradise City with cops.

WTH is Criterion doing anywhere near the NFS franchise?

 

[wuliheron]

A phone that plays...Crysis? We're still a LONG ways away from that. That's like saying 10 years ago Gameboys would play Final Fantasy X now. Perhaps devices can now, but they still cost at least $200.

You're thinking to small. There are already rumors that Intel has managed to piggy-back 1gb vram onto an ivy bridge cpu/gpu for a total bandwidth of roughly a 5770. Likewise, Nvidia is now combining their advanced gpu work with the ARM architecture and has a rather ambitious agenda for the next several years. What we can expect from game developers is an increasing emphasis on optimizing their legacy code to run on these devices.

ID's new Rage using the IDTech 5 engine is cutting edge in this regard and already plays well on an iphone. As the technology improves and the games become better optimized we can expect something like Crysis on a phone within five years or so. That may sound shocking to some, but by that time Crysis will be 8 years old.

 

[sticks435]

http://www.tomsguide.com/us/iPad-2-Sony-NGP-Honeycomb-Nintendo-3DS-XOOM,news-10471.html

Ex Sony Exec basically says the same thing we've been discussing/fearing. He believes tablets could replace consoles and even parts of the PC business model, such as free to play or facebook/brower games etc.