Andrew Wilson, the newly appointed CEO of Electronic Arts, felt that the transition to next gen consoles was less bumpy as compared to those of the ones before, in a talk at the Credit Suisse 2013 Annual Technology Conference.
When asked “what can be done with the new hardware?” Wilson responded, “One of the nuances here is that this transition cycle — this console cycle — both Sony and Microsoft’s platforms have simplified their architecture and simplified their toolsets,” he said. “In the last transition, we spent the first two to three years actually just trying to figure out how to get the most out of the boxes, particularly because the two boxes were very different. The good news now is that I think that we have reached a level of quality at launch that we didn’t get to last time, and our teams are already starting to think about investment in new innovations for the future.”
While no specifics were given about the “new innovations for the future” Wilson did make mention of how the connected nature of the consoles would play a prominent role. “But what I would say is that engagement between you and your friends and engagement between you and the sport or you and the subject matter that you love through not just the graphical but though the online capabilities and the connection capabilities are going to fundamentally change with how you’re going to interact with entertainment software in the future.”
While this console transition may indeed have been less bumpy than previous ones, this will offer little consolation for those affected by numerous bugs, glitches and corrupted saves gamers have experienced playing Battlefield 4, prompting even DICE to put on hold all work on DLC until the bugs are dealt with.
