What’s the story?
Each year, avid gamers look forward to September for the release of the latest edition of EA’s FIFA franchise. EA’s latest release, FIFA 17 was its largest selling edition ever with FIFA 18 expected to do even better.
According to The Sun, there may be some bad news for gamers still using the PS3 and the Xbox 360 as EA might not release the game for those two consoles after facing issues with the Frostbite engine on the last-gen consoles' outdated hardware.
In case you didn’t know…
The FIFA franchise is EA’s best-selling offering with more than 150 million units of the game sold worldwide. FIFA 17 introduced a revolutionary game engine called Frostbite which enabled gamers to experience a more realistic and life-like version of the game.
Also Read: 10 things we need in FIFA 18
The Frostbite engine was so advanced that the existing hardware on last generation consoles could not cope with the advanced hardware requirements of the Frostbite engine resulting in a toned down version of the game released for the PS3 and Xbox 360 consoles, which is expected to be the case with FIFA 18.
The heart of the matter
The lack of compatibility of the PS3 and Xbox 360 resulted in annoyed gamers receiving a toned down version of the game which did not have the Frostbite engine, nor ‘The Journey’ feature. In news that might further annoy avid FIFA players, it seems that EA have planned to wind down the series on the earlier generation consoles as early as this year’s release.
In 2013, at the Stifel Technology Conference, EA CFO, Blake Jorgensen, had announced that the gaming giant would continue to release games for the PS3 and Xbox 360 until 2017.
The older consoles could not support the Frostbite engine and will in all likelihood not be able to support the more advanced Frostbite engine that will accompany FIFA 18.
Parallels from history
FIFA 17 is not the only game that was not supported entirely on the older consoles. Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 was also released without the campaign mode on the older consoles and consisted of only the multiplayer mode, which drew a lot of backlash against the producers of both games.
Sportskeeda’s Take
With technology advancing in leaps and bounds, gamers have to keep up with the latest developments if they are to enjoy the benefits of the progress being made. Older console users surely know what they are missing out on with FIFA 17’s hyper-realistic gameplay only set to improve.
Also Read: What to expect from FIFA 18
Upgrading consoles might be an expensive but necessary activity if one wants to enjoy the latest instalment of the FIFA series at its best.
