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EA Frustrated With Wii Situation
EA CEO John Riccitiello has expressed his frustration at the weaker than expected performance of Nintendo’s Wii.
Speaking during a second quarter earnings call, the executive said that stalled Wii sales during the first half of the business year coincided with EA holding the lion’s share of third party sales for the platform.
“To be honest with you, I think the Wii platform has been a little weaker than we had certainly anticipated. And there is no lack of frustration to be doing that at precisely the time where we have the strongest third-party share,” Riccitiello told analysts.
The company says that it is the leading independent publisher on Wii year-to-date with a 21 per cent share in North America and 14 per cent in Europe. “While we have hit our share goal for the Wii business, revenue is well below expectations due to underperformance of the Wii platform,” EA said on its investor relations site.
“… We are reaching out to Nintendo to find ways to partner to push third-party software harder,” Riccitiello added. “I frankly think they need more beats in the year than they get out of a first party slate to be able to have the Wii software platform perform as well as they would like and we are building the products that are I think the most highly rated on the platform and at this point in time, generating the most revenue of any third party platform.
“… Very, very few multiplatform titles are succeeding on the Wii so far and collectively, Electronic Arts and Nintendo need to tackle that.”
Sources: Seeking Alpha / EA
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Copyright 2006 - 2009 Future Publishing Limited, Beauford Court 30 Monmouth Street Bath, UK BA1 2BW
England and Wales company registration number 2008885
wahahah suckers. The wii was bought by people who dont play games, dont know what games are & dont know why they bought the machine. I know several people like this. That is the genius of Nintendo. Now with the credit crunch, people are actually having to think about what they spend money on. All those wii's will just get put in the garage with all the other crap that people are wondering why they bought. And now the proper fans get Mirror's Edge 2 cancelled see. U just got skooled. If I was Riccictello I would cancel ur whole Wii line up now & fire everyone including yourself - after gouging as much cash & bonuses from the business as possible.
Good games sell if you advertise them though. The good games on the Wii (Dead Space included) by third parties hardly get any promotion at all. Capcom promoted Resident Evil 4 to some extent and that sold well and its other games have done well too. But on a system like the Wii, you have to get the word out to people about your games due to its broader range in consumers.
But to either develop crap games or good ones but not advertise them is not going to get you sales. Its like third parties go thick when creating and handling their Wii games. If you don't work at something, you won't get the results you want. How they can't see this is beyond me...
I agree. But I'd like to add that EA needs to have a bit more respect for the Wii audience. Why switch Dead Space's genre to a lightgun shooter when the first one was a 3rd person Action/Adventure? Why make a radically different Need for Speed game in an arcade mold with a stylized look? What was the 'All Play' sub label all about? Why is Madden 2010 feature such super deformed characters?
Although I can personally vouch for Need for Speed: Nitro and Dead Space: Extraction, EA keeps insisting on treating the Wii audience like it's a bunch of retards. Insulted, Wii owners haven't been returning the favor at the cash register.
Great point, and well made!
Advertising is absolutely key to getting sales from the Wii owners as like you say they are mostly casual gamers who don't read specialist magazines or visit websites like this one.
I can't remember seeing an advert for any of the 'hardcore' game that have been released on the Wii
Totally Agree. There is core market on the Wii, remember Nintendo apologies about last year E3 [2008] Iwata Miyamoto and Reggie said sorry for disappointed the core gamer.
Most third parties made last minute crappy ports on the Wii in the beginning then moaned about sales they didn't envision phenomenal rise of the Wii.
Wii owners are not stupid but now with quality games still need marketing....
QQ moar John.
You can't release poor titles on any system and expect people to lap it up. I know some companies get away with the odd title here or there but even the mighty EA must release something decent every so often.
millions of Wii owners lapped up EA Sports Active while games like Dead Space Extraction sell less than 10K, so stop with that quality sells bs cause it has been proven wrong over and over
They have released some good games on the Wii. The problem is good games don't sell on the Wii. Wii Fit owning Mums aren't interested in Dead Space.
me too