It should come as no big surprise that the biggest games publisher in the world (next to Activision, anyway) has gotten some pretty detailed demos from the next generation of consoles from Sony and Microsoft.
Referred to as the Xbox 720 and Playstation 4, the next line of gaming consoles are expected to be announced as early as next year. The current generation of aging Xbox 360 and PS3 consoles may have served gamers well over the past half-decade, but they're long overdue for replacement, especially with the Wii U coming out later this year.
Speaking to the audience at Gamescom, EA's Frank Gibeau says that his company has pledged to spend $80 million on next-gen development this year. He confirmed to the audience that both companies are, for a fact, making next-generation consoles and that he's personally had the opportunity to play with them. In the process of his presentation, he shattered any remaining doubts as to whether the systems were in development at all.
"I've seen both of them," he said in his speech about the future of the gaming industry. "Ten years ago we used to measure our market in terms of 200 million people. Now we are at a billion people playing games, and we have a straight line view on 2 billion."
Gibeau says that in the years ahead, the company will be driving efforts on both next-gen systems as well as free-to-play games, which he believes will become the dominant pricing model before the end of the decade.
