Blake Jorgensen, CFO of Electronic Arts, has given his take on the next-generation consoles of Microsoft and Sony, noting that he believes neither the Xbox 720 or PlayStation 4 will offer backwards-compatibility. Although this has long since been presumed to be the case among gaming circles, this is the first time a genuine insider has stepped out with all-but confirmation that neither of the hotly-anticipated next-gen consoles will offer any kind of support for pre-existing titles.
In an appearance at the Goldman Sachs Technology and Internet Conference in San Francisco, the EA exec. conceded the two consoles – unofficially dubbed the "Xbox 720" and "PlayStation 4" for obvious reasons – "will most likely not be backwards compatible". With that said, however, he also predicted that current owners of the Xbox 360 and PS3 would not be rushing to adopt to their respective successors straight away, thanks largely to the popularity of online gaming.
Log on to any popular multiplayer title, such as FIFA 13 or Call of Duty: Black Ops II, and you’ll find millions of gamers eager to connect and compete. However, with the new consoles, there will be comparatively fewer folks in the respective hubs, and since it’s very unlikely there’ll be any inter-generational mixing, Jorgensen believes consumers will, at least for the time being, stick with what they have.
He also cited peer pressure as a key component in the adoption rates of next-gen consoles. But whenever you decide to grab yours, you won’t be able to run any past, present, or soon-to-be-releasing titles on them.
While Jorgensen has quite a bit to say, he was naturally quite coy about giving too many details away regarding EA’s next-gen endeavors. While there have been internal tests run, nobody externally, says Jorgensen, "has really seen what the look and feel will be like on the new consoles." Suffice to say, he thinks people will be "pretty excited" with the end product.
He did reveal that there will be "more integration between tablets, phones, and the consoles over time," but then again, we already knew that.
So, if you held out any slim hope of being able to play your old games on a next-gen console, it looks now as though that ship has well and truly sailed.
(via EuroGamer)
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