Electronic Arts has been working on games for next-gen consoles like Xbox Scarlett and PlayStation 5 “for some time”, it’s said.
Speaking during the publisher’s first quarter earnings call on Tuesday, chief financial officer Blake Jorgensen said EA is “excited” about the 2020 arrival of next-gen consoles and “will be ready” for them.
Microsoft has said Xbox Scarlett will launch during the 2020 holiday season, while PlayStation 5 is also tipped to release next year, although it could be inferred from Jorgensen’s comments that Sony’s console won’t arrive before Madden NFL 21, which is expected to launch in August 2020.
“We’re working hard on building games for next year on Gen 5, I think that’s obvious,” he said. “I think everybody in the industry is doing that.
“As has happened in the past, not all games will come out on Gen 5 immediately. Obviously, games like Madden, you probably bring the Gen 5 game out when the Gen 5 console ships, not when Madden itself ships.
“We’ll be ready on Gen 5, we’re very excited about it and we’ve been working on it for some time,” he added.
During EA’s previous quarterly earnings call in May, Jorgensen claimed the company was “still in the discovery phase” when it came to building games for next-gen consoles and the challenges that came with it, but that EA had tried to prepare for their arrival by creating an easily modifiable engine structure.
Another top executive at a leading third-party publisher, Ubisoft EMEA executive director Alain Corre, also recently expressed excitement about the launch Xbox Scarlett and PlayStation 5, which he described as “a really major leap from the current generation” consoles.
Not unexpectedly, Microsoft is bullish about the potential of new consoles too, with Xbox Game Studios boss Matt Booty claiming their arrival could be “as big a transition as when we went from 2D to 3D”.
However, Platinum Games studio head Atsushi Inaba is not convinced by what he’s seen of Microsoft’s and Sony’s next-gen plans so far, telling VGC recently that he’s finding it “hard to get excited” about upcoming hardware that feels like “more of the same”.
Speaking earlier this month, Quantic Dream CEO David Cage said he thinks improvements in lighting technology rather than increased resolutions are going to be key to boosting realism in games on new platforms over the coming years.
Elsewhere during EA’s earnings call on Tuesday, CEO Andrew Wilson explained EA’s lack of support for Nintendo Switch, teased Apex Legends season 3, and confirmed the next Need for Speed game will be revealed at Gamescom.
