EA to Enter PC Hardware Market

[=98=]

Remowned has updates it's blog with news of EA's plans to enter the PC Hardware market. Here is what they had to say:

At Electronic Arts’ Comic-Con booth today, an EA rep mentioned that the company plans to market pre-built PCs in conjunction with the release of Crytek’s upcoming PC-exclusive shooter Crysis Warhead. The idea seems to be to try and circumvent some of the intimidation that exists for gamers who are either new to high-end PC gaming, or have been out of the scene for some time, and reassure them that it is not prohibitively expensive to acquire a machine that can tame something like Crysis and its followup.

Apparently, the rigs will come in various configurations, which will correspond to Crysis Warhead’s levels of graphical detail, with a likely price range being $600-$800 (I doubt EA will want to market a machine that meets only the game’s minimum spec), and they will probably be named accordingly–the Crysis Warhead Performance PC, and so on.

I like the idea of Electronic Arts looking for ways to make the PC platform more approachable, and this idea is sound–buy this PC that says Crysis on it; it’s designed to run Crysis, and you know that if it plays Crysis it’ll play anything else on the market. I was also impressed that EA had no less than three PC exclusives–Crysis Warhead, BattleForge, and Warhammer Online, and other games on display like Mirror’s Edge and Dead Space are in development for PC as well–in its booth at Comic-Con, a mainstream show if there ever was one.

As the rep also mentioned to me, EA’s own internal analysis indicates the PC market is growing–publishers just have to learn how to capitalize on it.

Be sure to leave your feedback in this thread and view the original news piece here

[Yukiism]

Re: EA to enter PC Hardware market

This is great news!

[imported_Freakboy]

Re: EA to enter PC Hardware market

Interesting idea, will be cool to see be played out.

[Mango55]

Re: EA to enter PC Hardware market

and there was me thinking pc gaming was dying, seems there is still hope.

[The_Eliminator]

Re: EA to enter PC Hardware market

This is a really interesting concept, i will keep a close eye on this.

[ManGuy]

Re: EA to enter PC Hardware market

It's a great idea, now people will have no excuse not to be a PC gamer.

[TheEn|gma]

Re: EA to enter PC Hardware market

it's a great move to revive the of genre into the mainstream (save WoW and the sims) not sure how happy I would personally be about buying a PC from EA after their poor ports.

Should be good forthose looking to get into the genre though but don't want the hassle of custom builds.

Kind of suprised it took EA to make this move though

[CptainCrunch]

Re: EA to enter PC Hardware market

I dont know, I have mixed feelings about it. As a consumer, why would I buy a higher end PC from someone who has a "not so great" history in support and is just now entering a market that has many others in it?

I specked out a very nice machine for someone the other day for about $700, but I dont know if I can see one that can run Crysis in all its glory for around the same price. The machine you would WANT to buy is going to be in the much upper range for sure. The $800 will probably low level graphics end.

On my other hand, this would stop people from buying the Best Buy/Wal Mart machines and trying to play games on high and hating the game. It could give people a better experience and create a new market of people who may need an upgrade from their old machine and get a game to go with it.

Crunch

[=98=]

Re: EA to enter PC Hardware market

I suspect they will work buy the computers off Dell or something.

[reynolddog]

Re: EA to enter PC Hardware market

Great, EA can't make a game. God knows how much these computers are going to suck.

[stilla-killa]

Re: EA to enter PC Hardware market

Great, EA can't make a game. God knows how much these computers are going to suck.

EA doesnt make the games they just publish them,

[imported_Whiskey]

Re: EA to enter PC Hardware market

EA doesnt make the games they just publish them,

In the case of Crysis, EA is only the publisher. But EA does make a lot of their own games as well, and many of those have been of questionable quality over the last few years. This will make a lot of people wary about spending their money with them.

[Mango55]

Re: EA to enter PC Hardware market

do these computers that EA is selling contain monitor, speakers, etc? i good monitor is around $200. that's a lot of money, almost 2 to 3 times more expensive than an xbox 360. you can see why most gamers are shifting over to consoles.

[Yukiism]

Re: EA to enter PC Hardware market

Why would the computers suck? From what i understand about this is that EA will just assemble the computer for you and put it on the market. They will just use Nvidia and that kind of thing, like products from their sponsors.

[{HHx}b14ze]

Re: EA to Enter PC Hardware Market

Remowned has updates it's blog with news of EA's plans to enter the PC Hardware market. Here is what they had to say:

At Electronic Arts’ Comic-Con booth today, an EA rep mentioned that the company plans to market pre-built PCs in conjunction with the release of Crytek’s upcoming PC-exclusive shooter Crysis Warhead. The idea seems to be to try and circumvent some of the intimidation that exists for gamers who are either new to high-end PC gaming, or have been out of the scene for some time, and reassure them that it is not prohibitively expensive to acquire a machine that can tame something like Crysis and its followup.

Apparently, the rigs will come in various configurations, which will correspond to Crysis Warhead’s levels of graphical detail, with a likely price range being $600-$800 (I doubt EA will want to market a machine that meets only the game’s minimum spec), and they will probably be named accordingly–the Crysis Warhead Performance PC, and so on.

I like the idea of Electronic Arts looking for ways to make the PC platform more approachable, and this idea is sound–buy this PC that says Crysis on it; it’s designed to run Crysis, and you know that if it plays Crysis it’ll play anything else on the market. I was also impressed that EA had no less than three PC exclusives–Crysis Warhead, BattleForge, and Warhammer Online, and other games on display like Mirror’s Edge and Dead Space are in development for PC as well–in its booth at Comic-Con, a mainstream show if there ever was one.

As the rep also mentioned to me, EA’s own internal analysis indicates the PC market is growing–publishers just have to learn how to capitalize on it.

Be sure to leave your feedback in this thread and view the original news piece here

LMAO....you all played their buggy games...who in their right mind would buy a pc from them?