EA: The PC is an 'extremely healthy' platform

EA Games President Frank Gibeau had some good things to say about the future of PC gaming in a recent interview with Gamasutra. According to the executive, the company's overall strategy to regain market share includes a renewed focus in the platform, and noted that it was "totally conceivable" that the PC will become their biggest market in the future.

"The user base is gigantic," he said. "PC retail may be a big problem, but PC downloads are awesome. The margins are much better and we don’t have any rules in terms of first party approvals. From our perspective, it's an extremely healthy platform."

Casual games on Facebook are a part of the plan, but FPS, MMORPGs and other PC genres are a huge focus for the company, with games like DICE's Battlefield 3 and BioWare's Star Wars: The Old Republic coming this year. EA also has a big interest in the free-to-play model, pointing out that Battlefield: Heroes is doing very well with 368, 241 new users every month on the PC alone and now have over 7 million registered users since launch. An open beta of Battlefield Play4Free is coming to PC in April and will use the same micro-transaction structure as its predecessor.

The publishing giant is looking to reclaim its once held throne at a time when the general perception about the company has dropped among gamers along its revenue -- which was down 15% last year. It's unlikely we'll see a radical shift in the short term considering console games accounted for 72% of EA's net revenues during its last reported quarter, but it's still good to see some renewed enthusiasm towards the most powerful and flexible gaming platforms of all.