EA: Last console transition "set us back for multiple years" because of RenderWare

There’ll be no repeating the mistakes of the past for EA this console transition, as the publisher already has two bicep bulging game engines fully tooled up and entirely self-owned; Frostbite and Ignite.

They’ll exit this year with ”spending flat,” which is something the last transition couldn’t enjoy. They were still building RenderWare, with their R&D budget bloating 30% last time.

Their next-gen titles already well in the works are running off Frostbite and Ignite, and they are naturally evolving over time to challenge better hardware setups.

”We are reiterating that we intend to exit this year with spending flat, year-over-year,” said EA Labels boss Frank Gibeau.

”During a console transition year, that has never happened. I think in the last transition, our R&D went up 30 per cent. The fact that we’re cranking these kinds of games on flat spending is astonishing.” Criterion was developing the RenderWare engine which went on to power a large number of titles over the years for multiple platforms.

”We blew the last transition because we relied on RenderWare. It set us back for multiple years. I was not going to repeat that mistake,” affirmed Gibeau. In EA’s quarterly fiscal report digital revenue has overtaken the packaged business. The Origin platform has accumulated over 50 million users.

No increase in general expenditure? Great news. That means consumer prices get to remain steady too, right? No. EA has upped their RRP of next-gen titles with Battlefield 4 now priced around &pound55 for PC, PS4 and Xbox One in the UK, which is &pound10 dearer than Xbox 360 and PS3. Sadly our gaming expenditures year-on-year will not be remaining flat.

Battlefield 4 releases on PC, Xbox 360 and PS3 October 29th in the US, November 1st in EU.