Last month , EA Sports announced their new Ignite engine. They showed demos, revealed features, and generally explained how it would improve on their previous tech. Then they admitted that Ignite was only heading to consoles, and that the PC version of FIFA 14 would use the same engine that powers its predecessors. Now, EA Sports head Andrew Wilson has explained the reasoning behind this decision.
Speaking to Polygon , Wilson compares the situation to the introduction of the PS3 and Xbox 360. "Even though there were some PCs on the marketplace that could run that engine, the lion's share of PCs on the marketplace could not," Wilson says. "And the majority of the gamer base that was playing the game on PC did not have a PC spec that would work with that." It wasn't until FIFA 11 that the PC version was brought up to the same level as consoles.
Wilson's point isn't that gaming PCs weren't able to run the engine, but that the specs of the FIFA playing PC base didn't catch up until 2010. And, he says, the same holds true with this generation. In addition, Wilson claims that Ignite is specifically targeted around the architecture of the new consoles. Not just their x86 base, but also "how the CPU, GPU and RAM work together in concert in that type of environment."
"Could I see the potential for EA Sports Ignite to make it to PC in the future? Yes, I think it's possible, but a couple of things need to happen," Wilson says. "There needs to be some adjustment in terms of how EA Sports Ignite works to facilitate the open nature of PC architecture, rather than the closed nature of console architecture." Before EA are willing to put the time in to complete that, Wilson argues, the average hardware specs of FIFA-buying PC users will have to catch up with the upcoming consoles.
