EA chief financial officer Blake Jorgensen feels that the next generation home consoles by Sony and Microsoft will “probably” not be backwards compatible, meaning that they won’t be able to play Xbox 360 and PS3 games.
“An important thing to remember is that next-gen consoles will most likely not be backwards compatible,” the EA rep said. “If you [play] multiplayer on a game, you’ll most likely not be able to play with someone on a different generation.”
Jorgensen then went on to say that if the next generation consoles are not out by Christmas this year, it will probably be bad for them. “Fiscal year 2014 will still be a fairly large gen-three if there’s a console business that comes in at the tail end of the year, mainly because a lot of our titles are built around sports calendars,” he said.
“And if a next-gen console doesn’t come out until next Christmas, most people won’t wait. They’ll want to be involved in getting those titles early, because their friends are all playing those titles,” Jorgensen explained. “If they all hold on and continue to play on third-generation, you’ll probably not see that box purchase until after the soccer season’s over.”
Considering the PS3 itself was a little retarded as far as backwards compatibility goes, it’s not exactly a bold prediction.
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