EA's chief financial officer Blake Jorgensen had some interesting things to tell Gamasutra about EA's next gen plans and specifically how they see the transition to gen-four play out.
"An important thing to remember is that next-gen consoles will most likely not be backwards compatible... And if you [play] multiplayer on a game, you'll most likely not be able to play with someone on a different generation. And so if you're a FIFA player and, and the soccer season's starting in August, and all your friends are playing FIFA, you're going to want to be on the same box that they're on. So if they all go out and buy a gen-four box if it comes out at Christmas, then you'll most likely do it. If they all hold on and continue to play on third-generation, you'll probably not see that box purchase until after the soccer season's over."
Being careful not to divulge too much information, Jorgensen added the following on the topic of next gen (gen-four):
"No one's really seen yet... I mean, we have internally, but no one externally has really seen what the look and feel will be like on the new consoles. So I'll reserve judgement other than to say that I think people are going to be pretty excited.
I do think once again without describing the new consoles, you've got to assume they're going to be highly integrated into the living room and the house, and there will be a lot of capability for interaction. I think the console makers have seen what the typical gameplay is today. It's very different than five years ago, or ten years ago. It was typically single gameplay, not dual gameplay or multi game players. So there's going to be some connectivity potential around that to make the game much more exciting."