EA CEO: We can and will do VR, but 'AR is more interesting'

- Electronic Arts CEO Andrew Wilson, speaking during a recent earnings call.

During a conference call with investors today Electronic Arts chief Andrew Wilson spoke to the state of the company's virtual- and augmented-reality endeavors, which have so far amounted to producing a brief VR scenario for its 2015 release Star Wars Battlefront. 

Notably, Wilson stated that while EA's Frostbite engine is capable of doing VR and the company is looking at making more VR games, it sees the VR market as being something of a slow burn. 

"Not a lot of new news on VR for us, and as you see there’s not a lot of new news on VR in the industry. People seem to have come to terms with the fact that VR….is going to take a couple of years, at least, to kind of get to a point where it is truly a mass-market consumer opportunity," Wilson said. 

"[We] will continue to push on the boundaries of, you know, what does a sports game look like inside of VR? What does a first-person shooter look like in VR? What does an action-adventure game look like in VR? And that’s really at a design level, and something that will manifest in the marketplace in the years to come."

He went on to say that "AR, I think, is more interesting," noting that some devs within EA are experimenting with how to integrate AR data into their games.

"The notion of a data overlay into your mobile, console, PC games, something that takes things that are important and interesting about you, whether that’s geo data or gameplay data or friends data, that you are able to allow the game to utilize, to enhance and extend your experience, I think we’re to see more of that sooner," added Wilson.

"Certainly our creative teams are thinking about what kind of data would a player want to use from their real world to augment their virtual world? And you should expect to see more of that from us also in the coming months and years.”