EA expects a great Xbox One vs PS4 fight during the Holiday

Console owners are not the only ones interested in how the Xbox One vs PS4 battle evolves, many companies also have their reasons for keeping a close eye on the situation. In a recent interview with GamesIndustry International, Electronic Arts COO Peter Moore talks about the importance of the second Holiday season for next-gen systems. Xbox One and PS4 launched during Holiday 2013 and unfortunately both consoles came with a weak lineup of games at launch. “The games should be there to support them,” Moore said. “Which is not always the case around launch period. Although we managed to get five games out, it was a pretty stark lineup I think on both boxes at first.”

But EA’s COO is optimistic that we’ll see a great Xbox vs PS4 battle towards the end of this year and the company will be there to collect the spoils of war. “I think it’s going to be a great fight in the holiday. And as a third-party publisher, we sit right in the sweet spot. Consumers love it as well, and it’s good for the industry,” he said. “You need powerful companies like Sony and Microsoft to be battling out with each other because it drives investment in their platforms. It drives competition. You want to see Nintendo come back with the Wii U. All in all, it becomes healthy for gamers, for the environment. When you have a runaway winner, that actually has a reverse effect.”

Moore also spoke a bit about competition in the PC digital distribution market. The big boss here is Valve’s Steam, but other services such as EA’ Origin and GOG have been growing more and more popular recently. Moore claims Origin was not created to compete with Steam, but he does seem to be a little annoyed at the fact that EA is not receiving the recognition it deserves when it comes to PC gaming. “We’ve been making games for the PC platform before Gabe Newell was graduating high school. And we’ve been the number one publisher forever, and have been the one developer/publisher that has supported the PC platform even more than Microsoft over the years. Yeah, you may say that’s a low bar, but that’s who we are, and our roots.”

While the Steam vs Origin battle is not as popular as Xbox One vs PS4, the bottom line is that competition is good for the industry and EA is not the only publisher to benefit from it. With Rockstar releasing GTA V for PC, Xbox One, and PS4, and Ubisoft’s Assassin’s Creed Unity being a next-gen only title, it’s easy to notice that everyone is focusing on the next big thing right now. We’ll still see Xbox 360 and PS3 games pop-up for a while, but these will most likely become a thing of the past in two or three years from now.