Electronic Arts Says: "You don't need an Xbox 360, PS3 or Wii"

Bit bored of the console war

Posted by Staff
Electronic Arts Says: "You don't need an Xbox 360, PS3 or Wii"
According to a senior EA exec Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo should should abandon the console wars and help build a common gaming platform, a senior executive at Electronic Arts has said.

Gerhard Florin, EA's head of international publishing told an interviewer that EA wants:

"An open, standard platform which is much easier than having five which are not compatible…We're platform agnostic and we definitely don't want to have one platform which is a walled garden."

Though being more realistic he added, "I am not sure how long we will have dedicated consoles - but we could be talking up to 15 years."

“Gaming will just require potentially a £49.99 box from Tesco made in China with a hard drive, a wi-fi connection and a games engine inside… basically a boiled-down PC,” predicted SPOnG’s old pal, analyst Nick Parker.

"You don't need an Xbox 360, PS3 or Wii - the consumer won't even realise the platform it is being played on… Games will be provided over the net. There might not be a need for a PS4 or dedicated consoles," Parker added.

"There could be a Nintendo channel, a PlayStation channel and an Xbox channel on your set-top box," he also opined.

Your thoughts? In the Forum please...



source: BBC Technology
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Comments

SuperSaiyan4 19 Oct 2007 12:21
1/13
So I was right:

EA = Easy Assets.

Yep this makes sense and whilst he is making soo much sense lets have only 1 car company in the world, 1 brand of toothpaste and 1 brand of clothing.

EA are well known on making shoddy games, and games with terrible frame rates aka NFS: Most Wanted and even worse Carbon. Then theres that NFL fiasco with the frame rates.

Even though I will get the next NFS game, what sets all consoles apart is 'choice'.

If we had only 1 choice companies could charge us whatever they want.

The kind of platform this guy is talking about is basically a PC or more so the 'Phantom' which never did quite make it to the stores.
realvictory 19 Oct 2007 13:00
2/13
Yeah, everyone's already got a PC. Just make games for that that require low specs and everyone will be able to play them. Some people already do that.
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Joji 19 Oct 2007 13:37
3/13
Yes EA, and there shoould only be one games developer/publisher and their name shoould be EA. I think not.

Nice pipedream of a single format but its never gonna happen. The big three have different visions of the gaming plateau and how they want to shape it.

Why not comment on something we want to hear you talk about, like banned mature games or Sony's BC debacle.
deleted 19 Oct 2007 13:50
4/13
and we should have one unified mind and one religion and one perfect race, err is that going a bit far?
Daemon 19 Oct 2007 14:02
5/13
I like platform neutrality, but I'd never favour a platform monopoly.

The different philosophies of the major consoles manufacturers is even exhibited in the physical form of the machine. If I want a large, powerful machine that needs consideration when it comes to ventilation, I'd consider a 360 or a PS3. If I want a small, unobtrusive machine that can run almost noiselessly, I'd consider a Wii.

And even if there was a single hardware unit that incorporated the different gaming platforms, surely it would need an operating system to run on, much like a PC? And I can't see it being likely that one OS (or GUI) would suit everyone, so once again, consideration would have to be made for different code.

I've no idea of Gerhard Florin's technical knowledge, but his comments suggest he's instead concentrated his learning on the skill of speaking from an orifice other than his mouth.
Daemon 19 Oct 2007 14:38
6/13
Daemon wrote:
I've no idea of Gerhard Florin's technical knowledge, but his comments suggest he's instead concentrated his learning on the skill of speaking from an orifice other than his mouth.


On reflection, that's not fair of me. At least half of the starry-eyed naïveté came from Nick Parker.
config 19 Oct 2007 14:44
7/13
What a lot of old gush.

The idea of a common platform has been around since the days of Speccy vs C64 vs Amstrad, of those with a console bent, Master System vs NES vs Atari

Has is happened? Has it fsck!

Seems to me that Florin's predication of a wait of at least 15 years is at best about 1000 years off the mark, at worst plain retarded.
Daemon 19 Oct 2007 15:10
8/13
config wrote:
Seems to me that Florin's predication of a wait of at least 15 years is at best about 1000 years off the mark


I dunno, man. I watched Buck Rogers the other day, and they still had fair competition between console hardware manufacturers even then. And Wilma Deering was in tight clothes! Hot damn.
irritant 19 Oct 2007 15:49
9/13
For someone working for such a (generally) respecting and long surviving company in this industry, the suggestion that there could ever be an open, standard, single gaming platform is incredibly naive.

Who controls it all? Who decides on the specs of the machine and performs quality control/lotcheck on potential software publishers?

Who manufactures the hardware? Who stops one manufacturer deciding that if they stick twice as much VRAM in theirs it will be better than everyone else's and therefore sell them more units thus destroying the standard?

This will simply never happen. The only way we'll end up with one platform is if current platform developers stop creating new consoles (lilke Sega did) and no new ones pop up (like Microsoft did).

This is just some pillock whining about the fact that it's difficult making the same game on 5 different platforms with different hardware specs. Well tough. When you're as big as EA you put up with it. When you're a small developer it can easily sink you, so shut your whining Mr Florin. Try developing the same game across every mobile phone handset ever made when some have 128x128 screens and some have 320x240 screens, some allow max download file size of 64K, some allow 2MB, then you can whine.

Oh, and while I remember, I think it would be forgivable for Spong to ignore this idiot's views, but it made national news! It's on the BBC news website! Just because it came from a big company, they assume his points are valid.
config 19 Oct 2007 15:59
10/13
all together now...





THREE ..... DEE ..... OHH





The irony being that 3D0 was started by Trip Hawkins, co-founder of EA.

thanku and good night.
Smelly 19 Oct 2007 16:26
11/13
This whole idea wont work due to simple ecconomics:

1. Games consoles are sold at a loss, with the price subsidised by games sales. Get rid of the platform holder and the machine would have to be sold for a profit

2. Without a set standard, and with everyone being allowed to make this "games machine" there's no stopping one company coming along and putting (say) a faster graphics chip in theirs and say "hey kids, if you buy this one, your games will run at 60fps instead of 30fps).. Unfortunately this could lead to uncompatibility with certain games, as games companies start taking advantage of the hardware in one machine and not the other, etc etc.


Now taking into account those two rather obvious things which will happen.. That games machine already exists... It's called a PC
deleted 20 Oct 2007 18:43
12/13
Been thinking about this a bit, and is this some talk leaking from a secret plan of EA`s to create a game console?, think about it, EA has a massive dominance in the gaming world with IP`s recognised from 4 years olds to grandads, they can buy and destroy indie studios for fun, they dont just exisit in the console world though they have, Mobile Phone games, PC Games, Pogo, Etc and would it not make sense for them to try and enter the console manufactor world?

but how? 3 on the market, 3 big big companies, they wouldnt stand a chance who would support it?

What though if it was open if there were no fees involved for developing for that console and anyone can develop for it, like an open source console? EA makes the console a cheap console, say PS2/Wii graphics make a little profit on each console sold like he says sell it through tescos at £50/60 and make your money on the games you make while still porting those to other consoles, and licencing out console tech for other manufactors like a dvd player or PVR as long as they have standards like must ue a certain graphics chip an memory must have wifi and Hard disk then others can add what they want like, HDMI or DVD playback or even HDTV tuners.

Now i have no business experince in this market but im sure if someone could pull this off EA could??
icanseeu 21 Oct 2007 08:46
13/13


1. Games consoles are sold at a loss, with the price subsidised by games sales. Get rid of the platform holder and the machine would have to be sold for a profit


not in all cases, the wii, gamecube and the ds all sell for a profit. The main reason nintendo made the wii with older technology is so they make more money as they lost so much on the n64 and not for innovation sake as many would say.
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