Whether you love the Wii or hate it, the demand is still strong for the miniscule white game console. EA’s CEO, John Riccitiello also agrees, although he admits that EA made the wrong bet as far as which game console would be the leader in the industry.
Considering that the Big 3, Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo released their versions of next gen machines within a relatively short time, EA had to make a decision on which consoles it would focus on. The bottom line was profitability and it looked like Sony’s PS3 and the Xbox 360 would be in the driver’s seat. Nintendo’s Wii was literally put on the shelf for game development and the rest is history.
The bets were made, and John Riccitiello looked back on the decisions and said, "One thing that’s different is we typically figured out who the market leader was going to be before the start of the cycle and bet with our development resources on that platform.
"We made the wrong call there (by betting on the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360), which made this transition harder than it would otherwise be. But now we’re catching up, and I think we’re fine. We’ve got some incredibly innovative Wii titles, [and] incredibly innovative DS titles coming. And so I think that issue’s sort of behind us."
Since the giants in game publishing and development have to make decisions on which console platforms they will make games for, this means an expectation that a console will have, at the very least, a seven-year life cycle. With the initial move to primarily leave out the Wii in EA’s roster, it showed a lack of confidence in the Wii’s staying power.
EA was not alone as virtually all of the gaming press, (with the exception of GamerNode and a few others) predicted a swift and horrible end to Nintendo’s game console.
But as Riccitiello said, EA is catching up and is dedicating more of its resources to making games for the Wii. The question on game industry minds is "Will they be good games or just games that try to jump on the popularity of the Wii?"
That answer will be forthcoming in the following months as we see more titles appear for the Wii from Electronic Arts.
[via San Jose Mercury News]
