EA confirms ‘slow movement’ away from Xbox 360 and PS3, starting with Star Wars Battlefront

It looks like Star Wars Battlefront coming to current-gen systems only is the start of a new trend from Electronic Arts, as the publisher confirmed yesterday plans to slowly move away from developing games for last-gen consoles.

Speaking during yesterday's earnings call, EA's Blake Jorgensen, Executive VP and Chief Financial Officer, revealed we will start to see a "slow movement away from Gen-3," meaning the publisher will focus less on PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360.

He did maintain, however, that some of the publisher's "bigger franchises like our sports franchises" (FIFA, Madden, etc.), will continue to be developed for last-gen systems. "As a reminder, we've been making Gen-2 console games up until the last year or so," he added.

The reasoning behind EA's push to current-gen, he explained, is "partially because the power of the platform allows for exceptional gameplay and incredible graphics. And for something like Star Wars, we wanted to make sure that we provided the highest level of quality fo rthe game experience, and you can only do that on Gen-4 and PC."

One of the biggest complaints consumers have had about the shift to current-gen has been how last-gen systems (PS3 and Xbox 360) have hamstrung development. Developers have been criticized for holding back on newer games so that they can squeeze them on to the lesser powerful last-gen systems.

To their credit, publishers have begun to finally make the big move to current-gen. For starters, Activision has only announced Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 for Xbox One, PS4, and PC. And you'd think, given the amount of pressure on that franchise to deliver enormous sales numbers, that Activision would want it to reach as many people as possible. By releasing it only on current-gen, they are cutting out a large market of potential consumers. That being said, I'm still not entirely convinced we won't see a Call of Duty, of some form, released for Xbox 360 and PS3 this year. Even if it's not Black Ops 3, and just some spinoff title, I find it hard to believe Activision would ignore such a large audience.

 Fret not, Gen-3 owners, you'll still get new games, but it sounds like it'll be at a much slower and rarer pace. At least you can still count on your yearly sports titles.