I cannot understand why a decent dual core computer (which is the most common system these days btw) wouldn't be able to run a NG FIFA? By the looks of things (ok it's only a demo) FIFA09 doesn't even take full advatage of a P4 system? It's nowhere near 100% CPU load on my P4 PC with everything set on max...or does this mean graphics and stuff aren't very scalable at all on the demo? Cause I see minimal difference in performance and quality when changing the settings on a 3 year old budget gfx card, 1GB RAM and P4 3,2Ghz. Framerate is around 22-28 on the demo, except on cutscenes. This is with a 2,5-3 year old PC...
So I must ask why would it be so hard to make a decent NG version for PC? Alright, we have more players on the pitch, they need to move as realisticlly as possible and be able to make own decisions. You have the ball, it needs as realistic physics as possible. And then we have the animations obviously. If we skip the action type of games and look no further than GRID and PES, both sport games. GRID has a lot of physics for several cars as well as taking into acount with weather and what effect it has on the surface (roads, dirt and grass) and your car. And great graphics. Doesn't need a monster computer to handle that game, most of todays PCs can handle it.
PES then. We see a whole different kind of physics in that one. And PES08 worked well on my old P4 machine. It ain't proper next gen, but with ball physics you have a pretty realistic game in that area. What is the reason EA cannot even make the ball act as it should? If I'm not misstaken PES also takes weather into account, how it affects gameplay. These are just small things that EA hasn't managed to get grips on after all these years. Gameplay sees minimal changes each year, for the better? Sure. But so much more can be done. We aren't in the 90's anymore. Most people who play games on PC, be that FIFA, GRID or Crysis...they will have a decent enough PC to handle next gen. Not to mention it wouldnt be too hard to scale the game. Have a switch on/off for new AI, ball physics and graphics and people with both old and new PCs could enjoy it.
The very least you could expect is FIFA to be a hybrid on the PC. Add how weather affect the ball and players, add some realistic ball physics (if modders can, surley EA can too?!), add some more free motion to players, add some better AI for computer controlled team (use the wings!), make the ref's actually get involved in the game, update the crowd (have them wear club colors and not jumping throughout the entire match!), skip the cutscenes and let players run around celebrating freely (for goodness sake this was even in FIFA98 for cryin out loud! Why remove it?!) and voila you have a much improved game without even having to port it from the consoles! IT WON'T recuire some sort of NASA system to run it...in fact it would probably work well on the worst C2D processors even.
Heh, sorry for the long post. It bacame a much longer rant than it was supposed to be.
Last question: how does EA know that only 1-3% of FIFA gamers have good enough PCs? Have you actually asked them? Have you even asked them what they want? The only reason I can see FIFA beeing to difficult to make NG on PC is that EA can't optimize it so it CAN run on a PC...but that's down to them not beeing good enough, or not wanting to take the time to make it stable enough for the PC. But just change the current game/engine, don't even have to port it from the 360/PS3 to make it a good game! In fact it would be better to have a PC game built from ground up.