EA's Brown: Longer Console Cycle, More Price Cuts Ahead Options

[Xbox-Scene]

EA's Brown: Longer Console Cycle, More Price Cuts Ahead Posted by XanTium | March 13 00:04 EST | News Category: Xbox360

From gamasutra.com: [QUOTE] The current console cycle will be longer than in previous years, says Electronic Arts CFO Eric Brown -- which means the highest-growth period for software sales still lies ahead following further price cuts. Speaking at the Wedbush Morgan Securities conference in comments listened in on by Gamasutra, EA's Brown noted that with two out of three platforms currently capable of rendering graphics in full high definition at 60 frames per second, there's just not much further they can go at the current stage of tech. "I myself am not quite sure where we go from here," said Brown. "There's just no broadly-available consumer viewing technology beyond HD. You have to be a PC technophile with an ultra high resolution monitor to get past that." [/QUOTE] Full Story: gamasutra.com

[Rickets06]

No where to go? I find that hard to believe. At least the game developers might work harder.

lol, no they won't.

[steveju]

Last time I checked, FullHD was 1080p and 720p @ 30fps (barely) isn't 1080p @ 60fps.

[21cwSpanky]

Last time I checked, FullHD was 1080p and 720p @ 30fps (barely) isn't 1080p @ 60fps.

Maybe on the TV specs but the consoles can render as fast as the hardware allows to their own frame buffer.

[ThE MaSTeR 3]

Good maybe Blu-Ray "research" will be complete by time the next consoles come out.

This post has been edited by ThE MaSTeR 3: Mar 13 2009, 08:51 AM

[steveju]

Maybe on the TV specs but the consoles can render as fast as the hardware allows to their own frame buffer.

Actual games can't be rendered at 1080p (before scaling), because neither system has enough power to do it. The PS3 might be able to do 1080p on a decent game without any AA at 30fps some day, but I wouldn't count on it.

[jay_galway]

This EA speaker is a bit of a fool really, if he thinks there is no real need to go further with technology. Sure if your talking about resolutions ofcourse, but what about polygon counts etc. The more polygons the more realistic the game looks, if its 3d. This ofcourse needs more processing power... Good to know EA has their finger on the pulse when it comes to games etc.

[beasty54]

EA's Brown noted that with two out of three platforms currently capable of rendering graphics in full high definition at 60 frames per second, there's just not much further they can go at the current stage of tech.



Both consoles struggle to render games natively at 1280 x 720 @ 30fps in most cases so as far as i'm concerned the current hardware is well outdated now and new hardware capable of rendering games natively at 1920 x 1080 and running at a constant 60fps without breaking a sweat would be very welcome.

I cant help but laugh at the crap these guys come out with knowing that it is utter bullshit, i suppose they just count on "average joe" being the only person that reads it

[Mushy2000]

EA's Brown noted that with two out of three platforms currently capable of rendering graphics in full high definition at 60 frames per second, there's just not much further they can go at the current stage of tech.



Both consoles struggle to render games natively at 1280 x 720 @ 30fps in most cases so as far as i'm concerned the current hardware is well outdated now and new hardware capable of rendering games natively at 1920 x 1080 and running at a constant 60fps without breaking a sweat would be very welcome.

I cant help but laugh at the crap these guys come out with knowing that it is utter bullshit, i suppose they just count on "average joe" being the only person that reads it

I care about gameplay... take your 4000x 2million resolution and have fun waiting 10 years to make a game.

[beasty54]

I care about gameplay... take your 4000x 2million resolution and have fun waiting 10 years to make a game.

So your not interested in the progression of technology?? If people weren't interested in the progression of technology we wouldn't have our nice new HD TVs, blu-ray players and quad core PCs. I'm pretty sure you wouldn't be happy sat playing with your wooden ball on the end of some string?? No i didn't think so.

[trentdadi]

I kind of agree with him, there comes a time where you would rather have developers spending more time on game-play then graphics... Look at World of Warcraft for instance, it has about as many subscribers as PS3s and Xboxs sold combined, but the graphics pale in comparison to anything on the xbox or ps3... why? Because it is extraordinarily fun to play.

Don't get me wrong, I love a game with GOOD graphics, but I can look past them as long as it is fun and there is lots to do. I feel lately as though a lot of developers are putting more importance on how their game looks then how their game plays.

[beasty54]

I kind of agree with him, there comes a time where you would rather have developers spending more time on game-play then graphics... Look at World of Warcraft for instance, it has about as many subscribers as PS3s and Xboxs sold combined, but the graphics pale in comparison to anything on the xbox or ps3... why? Because it is extraordinarily fun to play.

Don't get me wrong, I love a game with GOOD graphics, but I can look past them as long as it is fun and there is lots to do. I feel lately as though a lot of developers are putting more importance on how their game looks then how their game plays.

I agree to an extent, gameplay shouldn't be over looked BUT to me a game must obviously be fun and look as nice as possible.

[SovietSlayer]

EA's Brown noted that with two out of three platforms currently capable of rendering graphics in full high definition at 60 frames per second, there's just not much further they can go at the current stage of tech.



Both consoles struggle to render games natively at 1280 x 720 @ 30fps in most cases so as far as i'm concerned the current hardware is well outdated now and new hardware capable of rendering games natively at 1920 x 1080 and running at a constant 60fps without breaking a sweat would be very welcome.

I cant help but laugh at the crap these guys come out with knowing that it is utter bullshit, i suppose they just count on "average joe" being the only person that reads it

And what would the difference be between 1280 x 720 @ 30 v 1920 x 1080 @ 60? A game that looks slightly better on a 60 in tv and is a bit smoother? Wow thats soo worth paying 300-500 bucks for new hardware.

I've said it before and i'll say it again back in the past new hardware was a limiting factor in game development. That's no longer the case and now software is the biggest hindrance to good games. You can make the xbox 720 but that wont mean its game will be any better then the 360.

[jdsony]

"Speaking at the Wedbush Morgan Securities conference in comments listened in on by Gamasutra, EA's Brown noted that with two out of three platforms currently capable of rendering graphics in full high definition at 60 frames per second, there's just not much further they can go at the current stage of tech. "

Ok well I agree that that technology doesn't NEED to be pushed and I welcome the fact of a longer system cycle. If for some reason the 360 were replaced I think it would make a lot of business sense to keep the Live Arcade games compatible with both systems. I love a lot of the simpler retro games and I like that most have been given the update to HD. Nothing wrong with the original graphics in a lot of them but HDTV's make a lot of them look pretty bad.

This guy sounds like a marketing dummy though. First of all as others have said current consoles are running in 720p and often under 30fps so there is growing room. Second of all it's not all about TV technology. Look at the Atari 2600 now compare that to the SNES, PS1, XBOX, or even the Xbox 360 running on an SDTV. Now tell me you can't see a difference. There's no reason why improvements can't be made at any resolution (though gains are diminishing with SDTVs). This guy doesn't seem to understand technology all that well.

This post has been edited by jdsony: Mar 13 2009, 08:15 PM

[Arch0n]

This guy like the vast majority of CEO/CFOs will likely drift from businees to businness obtaining more losses than wins and laughing all the way to the bank while doing so without ever really making much of a differnce.

His comments show him to be shortsighted and fixed in the current knee jerk reactionary mode to the current ecnoomic climate. In all probablility he believes that eveyone is now 'in for it no matter what' (having been oblivious 8 months ago to the impending apocolypse) when the reality is that during such a period innovation is at its highest especially where technology (and manufacturing) is concerned.

Similarly, his state of tech comments are complete crap as current tech doesn't mean a whole lot 12 months from now. Besides (to use his example) it's not like the 360 is doing 60FPS 100% of the time in full AA etc. so there's plenty of room for improvement there in addition to shifting to next gen media (BR, SSD).

If what he's saying was true then 200Mhz TV wouldn't have been released and certainly would not be selling (they're flying off shelves in my experience) since 1080P has been realised/implemented.