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EA holding live conf on PS4 today at Morgan Stanley tech conf [Up: Summary in OP]

iMax

Member
"New consoles are 8-10 times more powerful than current generation" — so PS4 and Durango are comparable? Thank god for that.
 
"Between 8-10x more powerful than current gen. 1080p, 60fps. unprecedented gameplay experience."

Actual quote btw.

He keeps flittering between plural and singular ("consoles" and "console")
 

Nirolak

Mrgrgr
Yeah, just seems weird to specifically mention PS4, instead of just broadly discussing where the industry could be moving. Do they really expect it to make a big impact?

EA has been spending the last year or two promising investors it will so they probably hope so!
 

Gahiggidy

My aunt & uncle run a Mom & Pop store, "The Gamecube Hut", and sold 80k WiiU within minutes of opening.
I can't remember, did they do one of these for the Wii U?
 

Nirolak

Mrgrgr
Someone better ask about used games.

That was last conference and their CFO already answered as much as they could:

Gamasutra said:
The used games market (and whether it will exist in gen-four)

"It's one of these classic double-edged swords. In one way the used game business has been critical for the health of the retail channel, and having a healthy retail channel is an important thing for us. The business will probably never been 100 percent digital. Bandwidths are a constraint, and will continue to be a constraint for many years to come, which hold back the ability to do full digital downloads of some games.

"So at the end of the day, it's storage capacity. Unless you've got a giant storage server in your house, keeping hundreds of games can tax your storage capacity. And so having a healthy retail channel out there like GameStop or Best Buy or others is important, and to the extent that used gams is important to them, I think that's a positive.

"Would we like to sell everything at full price and not have a used game market? Sure. But I think the used game market's a little like any other kind of market where it creates liquidity. The fact is, that liquidity benefits us in some fashion. So if someone goes in and trades in a game, there's a good chance they're going to buy another one of our games. And so if there's a liquid market, I think that that's not a bad thing at all.

"I can't really comment on where the next generation boxes are going to be relative to used games. I will say that the trend in the business is to have that always-on connectivity and connect with a customer, and to the extent that the software identifies a certain customer is going to create some issues going down the road in the used game market. But I do believe that the consumer likes it, and it's been good for the retail channel."
Source: http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/...e_beans_on_its_nextgen_plans.php#.URqs_PKGl8E
 

Massa

Member
EA was always on board. It was just unusual they weren't at Sony's conference showing their support for the new system like they normally do.

When Sony read Riccitiello's script with "we're showing an unprecedented level of support for the PS4" they immediately canceled their appearance.
 
"cross device play will be much easier. new business models opened up internationally. our new engines offer us lots of efficiency, $100m of R&D savings by using cross-gen engines."
 

Rapstah

Member
Can someone post summaries as they go along? I'm at work, can't listen.

<Buzzwords and empty claims>

[...] Fifa [...] Battlefield [...]

<Buzzwords and empty claims>

[...] Social features enhances their multiplayer focus [...]

<Buzzwords and empty claims>

[...] They've got fewer games now and they all run on the same engine so they can handle the upcoming generation [...]

<Buzzwords and empty claims>
 

Gorillaz

Member
*stated that they were hopping that they launch around the same time this time around because it was too much of a hassle last time*
 

netBuff

Member
Rajat was also just talking about how what would previously take months to do in development effort will now be able to be accomplished in days - this is good news for keeping development costs in check with the new platform!
 
EA was always on board. It was just unusual they weren't at Sony's conference showing their support for the new system like they normally do.

With certain posters/journos talking about MS cutting next gen exclusive deals they had people thinking that EA would be exclusive to MS and that Madden/FIFA would be MS exclusive for next gen because they weren't there for the unveiling. Nice to know that just like the special sauce stuff it turned out to be a load of bollocks.
 
"games = 5-10% increase in cost, lots of expanding what can be done in a game. OVerall larger titles and larger costs because of the larger possibilities, but also larger revenue streams."

question re: increase4 in game prices.

"probably be $10 more at start of gen, slowly go back down to $60"
 

DTKT

Member
Few things :

Progressive transition into next-gen.
Most of their core titles are ready since last year.
10% increase on R&D.
Not ready to comment on pricing but suspect same price point for core titles.

EA server backend:

They are trying to consolidate the different services and identities into a single one.
50TB of gameplay data every day.
Big changes into the backend in order to create a more stable server situation.
*loads of technical stuff about their backend (Origin servers, databases, databases center)

Data Analytics:

Greater connection with the player. 1 on 1 connection.
Greater personalization.
 
$100m Delta for Gen4 transition.

Expects 5-10% increase in cost for R&D per title.

Expects SRP of titles to be $69 for new titles at the beginning of this gen, settling to $59 later.
 
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