EA Sports Ignite engine won't work on current PCs

Written by David Hing

June 19, 2013 | 09:23

Tags: #fifa #ps4 #sports #wii-u #xbox-one

Companies: #ea #ea-sports

The new Ignite engine that props up all of EA Sports' next generation titles will not run on the PC or the Wii U.

The lack of PC support was explained away by EA Sports executive vice-president Andrew Wilson saying that most players don't have computers that could run it.

According to Wilson, the release of FIFA 11 back in 2010 resulted in many players being unable to play the game because they did not have an adequately powerful computer at the time and the company feels this would be repeated if Ignite-powered titles were released on the PC today.

'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 told Polygon. '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.'

Wilson further explains that the Ignite engine has been built for the closed Xbox One and PS4 hardware and not the open hardware of an average PC. He concedes that with a few adjustments, the Ignite engine might make the jump to PC in the future.

The current reported specifications of the PS4 and Xbox One suggest that each console is the equivalent of a moderately powerful PC as opposed to anything that will challenge a high-end gaming rig. Both consoles are listed as having 8GB of RAM and GPUs derived from the AMD Radeon 7000 series.

The decision not to make adjustments in order for the engine to run on a PC will be baffling to many considering that the game will have originally been programmed and initially tested on a PC.

The lack of Wii U support for the Ignite engine is less surprising with EA's previous declarations that they have nothing currently development for Nintendo's latest offering. EA developer DICE has also abandoned its efforts to get the Frostbite 3 engine, the engine powering a wide range of EAs titles, running on the Wii U after tests with its predecessor proved disappointing.
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