EA: Don't Expect Console Transition Anytime Soon

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Although it’s not a shocking or new prediction, Electronic Arts’ Chief Financial Officer spoke at the Goldman Sachs tech financial summit and revealed that he thinks consoles are far too expensive, and that we’re far away from seeing the next-generation of home video game consoles.

EA CFO Eric Brown pointed out that 48% of the total sales of the Sony PS2 occurred once the console’s price point was below $150, and he noted that we’re far away from that with the PS3′s current price at $300. Brown feels that this current generation of consoles is still too expensive, and that in his opinion, he’d like to see them lower to get them in more homes.

He added that the holiday promotion of a $50 Walmart gift card that was bundled with Nintendo Wiis helped, as did the PS3′s price drop to $300. Of course, the price of consoles goes down over time, which led the press present to ask Brown about the lifespan of the current generation consoles.

In his opinion, Mr. Brown said that we won’t see a sharp and distinct console transition like there was from Xbox to Xbox 360 and from PlayStation 2 to PlayStation 3. He made the keen point that as two of the three current-gen consoles can run at 1080p at 60 fps. He added that if there were a next-gen console, it wouldn’t have as much of a graphics improvement over earlier next-gen console iterations.

Plus, we’ve seen that when developers optimize a game on the PS3 or Xbox 360 for a HD widescreen viewing experience, tons of gamers take to the message boards with complaints about not being able to see or read the text on the game (see complaints about Dead Rising and the recent Mass Effect 2). So, it’s clear that despite these being HD game consoles, plenty of people are still playing them on standard def TV sets.