EA weighing up three to five new IPs for next-generation hardware
The industry may be quietly pretending the hardware cycle isn't a thing, but EA's Frank Gibeau is merrily preparing for the new IP opportunities afforded by the excitement of new tech.
"The introduction of new hardware from the big three is going to allow us to reembark on a bunch of new IPs, because it's the better time to do it, because you can really explore new ideas and do different things," the EA Labels boss told CVG.
"In a market this massive, launching new IPs is very risky and it's a big investment to make these games. So it's a natural thing to see in this point in the cycle a little bit more emphasis on the knowns, but in the new cycle you're going to see a lot of new IP from Electronic Arts."
In fact, Gibeau is already figuring out precisely which new properties the publisher will front.
"I can tell you right now there's between three and five new IPs that we're working on that we're thinking about for the next-gen. Some of them might come to market, some of them might not," he said.
"it's really one of those things where I'm consciously looking at introducing new IPs into the portfolio over the next several years as the new hardware comes into the marketplace that we can refresh."
Gibeau noted that at this point in the hardware cycle, new IP is a very risky proposition, despite how welcome it might be. He seemed just as keen as the rest of us for things to fire up again.
"If you're running a studio organization, the moment you stop creating new IP , your creative organization dies," he said.
"Because you have to constantly innovate and try new ideas and people within the organization want to do new things."
In a separately-reported portion of the interview, Gibeau heavily tipped E3 2013 for new hardware reveals.