EA Takes PC First Strategy to Development

Over the past couple of years, PC gaming has seen more ups and downs. Some games will launch and play without any issues, while others would remain unplayable until after a series of patches. One source of blame has been the split developer focus due to consoles. This should have become less of an issue now that we have x86 AMD consoles. EA for one is reportedly taking up a PC first strategy when it comes to their games.

According to EA CFO Blake Jorgensen, their goal is to have one engine run on and scale to every platform. With the single x86 architecture and underlying game engine, it is simpler to build it once and then tweak it for each platform

“We build all of our games to the highest possible spec, which is typically a high-powered PC, and as the consoles come in, [which] may not be the highest spec, we may actually dummy down the console product to meet the spec of the console. In a world where the console looks more and more like a PC, that’s good for us.”

Now that everything is using the same architecture, it opens up opportunities for backwards compatibility and porting. This means developers can make a game run on any platform as long as it meets some minimum performance spec. Hopefully, this trend will take hold outside of EA and allow developers to make games less buggy and more efficient.