OXM
EA made mistakes during the last console generation jump, president of labels Frank Gibeau has admitted, but thanks to the Frostbite 2 engine, established franchises like Madden and Battlefield and a roster of new IPs, the publisher should have an impressive start on Xbox 720 and PS4.
Speaking to Bloomsberg, Gibeau echoed statements by company CEO John Riccitiello in July, attributing sluggish sales to the "flattening effect" of long console cycle and promising a massive uptick when new consoles are unveiled next year.
"The new hardware's going to be out in about a year's time," he said. "So we're right around that period of time when the market's slowing down, and then you have a new game-changer - all-new technology, all-new hardware which will start another growth period".
Some commentators fear that another hardware jump will make games uneconomical for all but the richest developers, but EA's bang up for it. "'Transition is our friend', is kind of the saying we have around EA," Gibeau commented. "Because it gives you a chance to reset everything. We've done enough transitions in this business that we know what we're doing, and we're going to go after this one in a big way. But it is a time where you see new companies emerge as leaders, and some traditional companies fall away."
He added: "I would argue that EA's nailed about four of its five transitions - we had a bit of a rocky start on Xbox 360 and PS3. But we're the number one publisher on this console [now], it took us a couple of years to come back on it. We learned a lot from that transition and what went wrong, and we're applying that learning to make it right this time.
"It was a big jump last time, we went from standard def to high def, we went from very unconnected boxes to online service models, we saw a big jump in processing power, and frankly we made a couple of mistakes in how we built our technology that was going to build all these games out.
"Fortunately, we have a very different approach to technology now - we have an engine called Frostbite, that is a proven engine that we've shipped a lot of games on, that's tailor-made for next gen hardware. So we're in really good shape from a technology standpoint which is where we had our misstep last time, and we have a much richer and broader set of IPs than we did on last generation.
"EA Sports is there with all of its power, but you're also seeing some really big brands like Battlefield coming online, and we've already started three to five new intellectual properties that we're going to launch in the first 24 months on the new generation."
Earlier this month, Gibeau asserted that next generation consoles would help propel the games market past two billion users. He claims to have laid eyes on both the next Xbox and PlayStation 4.
http://www.oxm.co.uk/45388/ea-we-had-a-rocky-start-on-xbox-360-but-our-new-ips-and-frostbite-will-dominate-xbox-720/
