EA: "It's conceivable PC will become our biggest platform"

EA Games president Frank Gibeau has suggested that the publisher's future may lie in PC gaming.

"The user base is gigantic," he told Gamasutra. "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. It's totally conceivable it will become our biggest platform."

Facebook and the upcoming MMO Star Wars: The Old Republic are perhaps the vanguards of this, but Gibeau also referenced free to play games for the Chinese market. "If you look at the way people play in Asia, PC is the model. I think that free to play model is coming to the West in a big way."

Gibeau echoed comments regularly made by EA CEO John Ricitiello about the publisher's possible resurgence coming via digital sales. "I really feel good about where we are at EA these days. There's a lot of transition going on in this industry and we're really well positioned for that.

"We feel like we're on the offensive. We're moving from a fire-and-forget packaged goods model to an online services model."

EA recently revealed plans to open a new multinational strategy games studio, Victory, which will relaunch its Command & Conquer IP.