Home Gaming EA’s building its games for for high-end PCs first, then scaling back for console

EA’s building its games for for high-end PCs first, then scaling back for console

By Geoffrey Tim
Posted on November 18, 2016
1 min read
44

EAPC

The PC may be the premier place to play games when it comes to visuals, but the platform has its fair share of issues when it comes to games – one of them is the relative prevalence of middling console ports. There’s a strong and often justified perception that PC gamers end up with the short straw when it comes to Blockbuster AAA games. Often, PC versions are mildly broken. Sometimes they’re downright unplayable. Largely though, they’re just not build for the PC platform – ported across from consoles without the rich feature-sets PC gamers love and crave.

That may not be the case with EA games going forward. According to the company’s CFO Blake Jorgensen, EA says its builds its games for the highest-end PCs, and the scales backwards for the other platforms.

“We build all of our games to the highest possible spec, which is typically a high-powered PC, and as the consoles come in, [which] may not be the highest spec, we may actually dummy down the console product to meet the spec of the console. In a world where the console looks more and more like a PC, that’s good for us.”

That sort of development is good for all of us, really – especially as the consoles shift towards essentially being PC’s. It’ll make scaling a lot simpler, and it really just makes sense. It’s one of the reasons that EA has shifted development of all of its games to the Frostbite engine. Keeping one engine up to spec is a lot cheaper and more efficient than maintaining a dozen disparate ones.

Hopefully this does mean that PC will finally be home to great versions of Madden, NHL and all the other franchises that have largely ignored the platform for years.

Last Updated: November 18, 2016

44 Comments

  1. Pariah ???

    November 18, 2016 at 11:33

    So that’s why EA has started charging console game prices..

    Reply

    • Andre Fourie

      November 18, 2016 at 11:37

      Geez, you alive?

      Reply

    • Captain JJ

      November 18, 2016 at 11:39

      They’re trying so damn hard to justify it, it’s quite hilarious. XD

      Reply

    • Hammersteyn_hates_Raid0

      November 18, 2016 at 11:53

      lol

      Reply

  2. Andre Fourie

    November 18, 2016 at 11:35

    Well, that’s a slap in the face.

    Reply

    • Lord Chaos

      November 18, 2016 at 11:38

      Now you know how we feel.

      Reply

  3. Andre Fourie

    November 18, 2016 at 11:38

    Aaaaaand waiting for the derogatory comments about consoles to start…..

    Reply

  4. Captain JJ

    November 18, 2016 at 11:39

    I’ll believe it when I see it.
    At the moment EA first makes games that need to be online at all times…then worries about everything else.

    Reply

    • BakedBagel

      November 18, 2016 at 11:42

      Including content 😛

      Reply

      • Captain JJ

        November 18, 2016 at 11:48

        Yea. I honestly would’ve considered Sims 4, but it’s STILL lacking content that was in 3 from the start. So no thanks.

        Reply

        • Bruce Bielie

          November 18, 2016 at 12:16

          I hear this argument all too often. And to some extent I agree. But is 4 not meant to be a different game to 3?
          Some people I have chatted to loves the Sims 4, and when I ask about 3 the first thing they mention is the unplayability of it due to load times etc with all expansions loaded…

          Reply

          • Captain JJ

            November 18, 2016 at 12:39

            Yes. For sure, the load times of 3 were abysmal. But my issue is that the content that they’re lacking is some of the things I enjoyed the most. So without it, there’s really no reason for me to buy it even.

          • Bruce Bielie

            November 18, 2016 at 13:16

            That makes sense.

  5. Kromas Ryder

    November 18, 2016 at 12:30

    Mass Effect hype from an EA article. Paid for and ready!

    Reply

    • Captain JJ

      November 18, 2016 at 12:36

      Mass Effect….. that’s a game, right? 😛

      Reply

      • Kromas Ryder

        November 18, 2016 at 12:41

        /slap
        /tableflip
        /rage

        Reply

        • Captain JJ

          November 18, 2016 at 12:43

          haha
          XD

          Reply

      • Bruce Bielie

        November 18, 2016 at 13:18

        No. It is a life altering event.

        Reply

  6. Deceased

    November 21, 2016 at 11:25

    EA just scored some points from me – not many cash-money-whores would do this – in fact, this is mind-blowing to me – hopefully Bethesda would follow suite when the next Elder Scrolls game is in development – my biggest issue with Skyrim ( and the Special Edition ) is that everything looks like plastic, everything feels clunky, all animations looks “meh”, etc. – they actually did well with Fallout 4 – but you can still see that it’s a console-first port. 🙁

    Reply

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