Re: Will NHL 21 Come Out For PC?

@youneverknow8 

The NHL studio researches the viability of a PC port. I don't have any fine details on what determines whether or not it happens, but it mainly has come down to not enough interest. Yes, there are some threads from PC players wanting NHL to return, but it's not quite as high as it seems. If it were, most likely this would happen. Hockey is kind of a niche sport. It doesn't have the same popularity as Soccer or American Football. Hopefully, a PC release happens. I know it's something we'd all like to see happen, but it could also mean sacrificing work on the console version. Which is vastly more popular.

@youneverknow8 

In my opinion, all the different ways people have been asking for a PC version are why there isn't one - you all need to consolidate your support into a single entity, otherwise they won't be able to get an accurate picture of how many unique users want it. Also, the most I've seen in a single petition was like 12,000 - you're gonna need wayyyyyyy more than that to make them budge.

@EA_Aljo 

Again, they only direct it better when the shot is coming from the left (tendy's right) - coming from the right side is just as easy, if not easier than previous years; I don't know how you haven't noticed it. Seeing as how there was a recent patch that made defensive awareness better, shot-blocking and interceptions did indeed need fixing afterall.

Here's the thing about forehand-backhand dekes - if a human goalie knows that's all you're going to do, he will act accordingly; cpu goalies get fooled like 90% of the time and don't learn, that's why they need tweaks.

This picture is for a different game under the EA umbrella but, and this is just my opinion, I don't think you can really blame economical struggle affecting quality for yearly titles that have a host of microtransactions when said MTX more than make up for it.

@TTZ_Dipsy 

I just haven't noticed anything different with rebounds from either side. I'll still watch out for it though.

You don't need to do an extensive search to find out there is interest for this game on PC. 140 000 views on youtube for a roster update of NHL 2004 on PC. If that doesn't sound like people being desperate for NHL on PC i don't know what is. We're talking about a 16 year old game still having that kind of following just because there's no alternative. You don't see more people asking around because most of us gave up the idea of a new NHL game on PC.

This and the fact community managers keep deleting everything that point at them for why people lost interest in their PC version in the first place. Reason being they ported the * NHL PS2 version 4 years in a row while console users had all the fun with the new gameplay and next gen stickhandling and all that stuff.. They'll probably delete that too because they don't like the truth. 

@M2xim 

When did that video go up? I looked for it, but couldn't find it. Obviously there's a passionate community of PC players. Should we see it grow, I'm sure there will be more interest in creating a PC version.

We aren't deleting posts about a PC version. Unless it breaks the rules of the forums.

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@EA_Aljo wrote:

@TTZ_Dipsy 

I just haven't noticed anything different with rebounds from either side. I'll still watch out for it though.

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Can't you just do the pc port for NHL 21. There have been several people I know who would love to play on PC. Not everyone gets on forums though. I feel like if you put it on PC it will unite the community. People only play it on Console because it isnt available on PC. You should put it on PC and provide crossplay which would eliminate the need for population problems.

@bluesfanp 

I would love to see NHL back on PC. Unfortunately, it's not as easy as just porting it over. There's a huge amount of work that goes into this. That means putting the console versions of the game on hold to work on the PC version. While we know there's a very passionate PC crowd, stalling progress on the console version, where the huge majority of the community plays, would really upset people.

@EA_AljoI'm strongly disagree with you about "niche sport" statement. Hockey may be a niche sport in US, but in countries like Canada, Russia, Sweden, Finland, Czech Republic hockey is either number one sport or at least it is very very popular. Much much popular than american football.

I should say, that after MLB The Show goes to PC, which has a good chance to happen in 2021, soon NHL will be the only North American major sports league without PC game representation, Not good.

BTW with you statement about console version popularity I'm not agree as well. I would agree in 2007, not in 2020.

@darthalru 

Seeing as how there's only a console version available, it's obviously more popular than a PC version that doesn't exist. Regardless, a PC version is always being looked into. If it is determined to be worth diverting work on the console version for, I imagine it stands a good chance at happening. We definitely understand there's a very passionate PC crowd, but the reality is that it's a significantly smaller population than console players. This is also very evident with our other sports titles as the console players very heavily outweigh the PC players.

I understand the popularity of hockey in other countries, but compared to something like Football (soccer), it's a niche sport. Whereas football is played worldwide, hockey is contained to cold weather climates for the most part. That and there's also a very high barrier to entry as it requires a lot of gear, ice time, etc. A sport like football can be played pretty much anywhere with minimal gear. American football is another story as it's insanely popular in North America. Hockey, by comparison, is more of a niche sport in North America. Yes, it's the most popular sport in Canada, but when you break down the amount of people that would play the PC version, it's going to be a very small number when compared to console players.

We absolutely would love to see the player base grow by adding a PC version, but that can't be done when it's going to detract from the most popular version of the game. Hopefully, this changes over time. Technology is also changing. It's possible that new streaming services may allow people to play on PCs. That could be a great solution instead of needing a separate PC port.

@EA_Aljo 

People keep making multiple threads asking the same questions about NHL on PC - I'd like to formally request the dev team makes a *single* stickied post (whether it be Reddit, AHQ, EA Forums etc. etc. -- just make it a be-all-end-all post that all pages will be forwarded to). Starting in NHL 21 I'd like for there to be a tile somewhere on the screen that says 'NHL ON PC' in big letters where again, it will send people to the post to discuss (maybe even add a poll that tracks unique inputs for the heck of it). I still say the only reason people think there is a huge demand for PC is the fact so many posts with 0-3 replies (mostly from bumps from the poster) are allowed to fill pages.

By deleting all random PC threads and sending users to the sticky, I'm sure we'll get a better record of unique ID requests and a cleaner forum in the long run

A reddit thread today with people asking for hockey on pc.

https://www.reddit.com/r/pcgaming/comments/f3u2bl/pc_games_for_baseball_football_and_hockeywhere/

I would love to see the next NHL come out on PC. I am struggling to see why it would require any particular effort to port it over to PC, given that FIFA and NFL are both already running very well on the PC. You would think that with the Origin Access subscription service and EA's very own Origin platform, all of EA games would find their way to the PC since Origin would be the ideal home but I guess someone decided otherwise for some obscure reason, probably some outdated research conducted over 10 years ago (well before Origin platform was even designed) when it was decided NHL 09 would be the last game on PC

If it were too complicated, at least bring back NHL 09 back in the Origin store - it was removed for some reason, thereby preventing newcomers from buying ANY NHL game for PC

@planois 

It's not overly complicated - it will take resources away from the console version and hockey is less popular than soccer and football.

@FoxFerocity 

You need to consider console players also clicking on the video to see updates to the roster and I'm sure it wasn't 140k unique people clicking on the video. 

Nobody is saying a PC port is impossible; it's just not currently worth the investment. EA doesn't have the monopoly either so if it really is that viable, why hasn't a different company made one?

Please release NHL 21 PC version.
I have been a fan of the NHL series since the late 90’s, however I always used to buy the PC version of the game.
After year 2008/9 I was forced to buy a PlayStation to be able to play the game.
Please bring back this game for PC!

apparently you should not wait for the PC port and you have to buy a console

One thing is for certain tough, I will never buy a Playstation 5 just to play a new EA’s NHL game.
As soon as the new Gen is released (I think PS5 Is set to be released in Nov/Dec) I’m done. After 23 years I’m done.

It’s just not realistic or fun anymore, for example like this year’s version and in 19 I have been playing HUT, and I’m really trying to enjoy it, but the fact of the matter is, that I don’t.
Sports gaming shouldn’t just bee about online gaming and desperately trying to get an 99 OVR Matthews card.

Ok that was a little “off topic”

So, back to the topic of his thread: It’s often claimed that the popularity and the community of EA’s NHL series and hockey in general is not big enough worldwide to justify a PC version release and that a PC version would not be profitable enough for EA (at least this is rumored to be the reason for non PC release among the fans).
Well, a game like Madden have now been released for PC, how can an AM-football game like Madden be released on PC and NHL not?
In Europe nobody even knows anything about AM-football, there is no fanbase or community for AM-football in Europe. So why not release NHL on PC? I just don’t get it.

(PS: Moderator, please don’t delete my post, the first lines in this post may be a little “of topic” but the rest should be ok)

@Knuten21 

Gotta consider Esports wasn't around when the offline hockey games were running wild; a 99 Matthews is very important in today's market and EA caters to this quite well. If people stopped buying packs like sheep you would get your offline utopia.

Simply put, American football is more popular than hockey overall and sells more so a PC release is justified

Americans go insane for football the same way Europeans do for soccer

@TTZ_Dipsy

I have played EA sports NHL since the mid 90’s, and none of the games back then had an online feature, only NHL98 and 99 had an online feature, but nobody cared anyway because the internet capacity was crap back then.

I know that EA sports earn more revenue on HUT then what they do by selling copies of the actual game. Besides, introducing the game to PC gamers would at least open up the game to a whole new market. The last time NHL was released for PC was in 2008, the PC gaming community have exploded since then. It can also generate even more revenue by introducing the game to new PC gamers, more HUT packs and more revenue for EA.

Regarding the popularity of the sport it doesn’t justify if the game should be released on PC or not.
Ice hockey is the national sport in Canada, in the US only AM Football and basketball is bigger and ice hockey is growing momentum.
Here in Europe Ice hockey is popular in Sweden, Finland, Czech and Slovak Republic, Switzerland, Latvia and Russia. And a country like Germany is slowly starting to grow momentum for the sport.

And by the way, I’m not from any of the country’s mentioned above, I come from a European country in which Ice hockey is a very minor sport, so there are players from other European country’s as well.

The way I understand programming is that the games are programmed and coded on a computer, then ported for the consoles PS and XB. It wouldn’t take EA great resources to port the game to PC, It shouldn’t be any problem for them to do that.

Just port the game for PC, make it available on EA website and STEAM (No physical copy, online DL only)

@Knuten21 

I understand this seems like it should be easy to do, but the reality is that it's not. If it were, it would have been done. Hopefully, we'll have a PC version someday. At this time, I don't have any details on that.

The reason you see more popularity for nhl on consoles than pc is mainly because it’s much less work to have all copies run flawlessly on the same hardware.

i for one would much rather play nhl on the pc as well as so many others. Even if I had to pay $200 for the damn title, I would still spend that money than buy a console to play the 1 game title I have been waiting for over a decade to buy again. Same with The tiger woods golf titles that were so great. 

Quit being cheap and lazy EA, bring back the titles to the pc players because pc is the master race as shown in every single damn game. From better graphics to better frame rates, a good gaming rig will always surpass a console every time.

@StonedHipppy 

Something you need to consider as well is that usually having a gaming PC means you have higher technical knowledge about PCs. I'd be willing to bet that the majority of our playerbase doesn't share that kind of passion. They're hockey fans that just want an easy way to play with their friends. They want the game to just work and not be dependant on the myriad of hardware and software combinations that can interfere with PC games. Not to mention the large number of cheaters and hackers that can plague PC games. That's not something you need to deal with on consoles.

This is absolutely not an issue of being lazy. I don't think you guys realize how much research has gone into this. It's a common request but from a very small part of the community. We'd love to have a PC version, but when you consider the resources it takes to develop as well as what it would take to support and maintain the game on a different platform, there's a lot of work that goes into it for a small audience of players. Both FIFA and Madden are on PC, but they also have significantly higher populations on console. With hockey being a far less popular sport that both of those, chances are good there would be a very small community of players. That said, with cross-platform becoming more popular as well as the potential of streaming games on PCs, it's possible this could change in the not so distant future.