EA: "Next-gen consoles will most likely not be backwards compatible"
Doesn't expect sports fans to invest in new platforms mid-season.
The next generation of consoles will "most likely not be backwards compatible," according to EA chief financial officer Blake Jorgensen.
The EA exec made this comment during a question and answer session at the Goldman Sachs Technology and Internet Conference in San Francisco earlier today (via Gamasutra) where he hypothesised that current gen consoles will still be going strong in fiscal 2014, because those invested in sports games won't want to hop ship to a new platform mid-season if they can't carry their data with them.
"An important thing to remember is that next-gen consoles will most likely not be backwards compatible," said Jorgensen. "If you [play] multiplayer on a game, you'll most likely not be able to play with someone on a different generation."
He noted that a large share of EA's upcoming library is sports titles, which are aligned with the sports calender. So if a new console comes out around Christmas, most players won't want to wait that long and thus won't invest in the new generation until after the season is over.
"Fiscal year 2014 will still be a fairly large gen-three if there's a console business that comes in at the tail end of the year, mainly because a lot of our titles are built around sports calendars... And if a next-gen console doesn't come out until next Christmas, most people won't wait. They'll want to be involved in getting those titles early, because their friends are all playing those titles," Jorgensen explained. "If they all hold on and continue to play on third-generation, you'll probably not see that box purchase until after the soccer season's over."
We'll know more when Sony announced the PS3's successor on 20th February and Microsoft is expected to reveal its new console in the coming months.