Gibeau: EA planning '3 to 5 new IPs' for next generation of consoles
President of EA labels Frank Gibeau is confident about the next generation of consoles. He thinks EA is a master of transition, even though he admits the publisher made a few missteps at the start of this generation. This year will see "a big investment" from EA in technologies aimed at the next series of consoles, and the publisher already has a handful of new IPs in the works.
"We've already started three-to-five new intellectual properties that we're going to launch in that first 24 months on the new-gen," Gibeau tells Bloomberg in the video interview above. Gibeau admits that while technology is a big part of it, the process begins with the game and building out from there. "What I think what you have to first do is start with the technology and the hardware that is coming out – what it does really, really well – and understand what's gonna drive innovation there. You start from the game out and you build enough games and enough diversity in your brands to come out with a really strong portfolio that you can sustain for multiple years."
As for EA's strength during transition, Gibeau argues "EA has nailed about four of its five transitions" so far. "We had a bit of a rocky start on 360 and PS3, but we're number one publisher on those consoles. It took us a few years to come back on it, but we learned a lot from that transition and what went wrong, and we're applying that learning to make it right this time." Gibeau concludes that the jump from standard definition to high-definition, and consoles going from being unconnected boxes to online portals for gamers made this last transition tricky, but he's confident EA won't make the same mistakes again.
