Sony’s Phil Harrison was also in the mood to talk about Nintendo’s Wii console at this year’s Game Developer’s Conference, during the invite-only "Lunch with the Luminaries." He spoke slightly less favorably than Reggie, however.
Speaking with EA Blueprint’s Neil Young, he said that third parties have insurmountable competition on the Wii from Nintendo’s first-party software. This effectively limits the percentage of the console’s intalled userbase that is available to third parties, according to Harrison.
"Your addressable market is only 40% of the installed base."
The EA exec cited EA’s Smarty Pants as evidence to the contrary, which has proven to be successful on the Wii, stating that it was "very easy to build very quickly." He also said that Wii development is "…fundamentally much more fun… almost like Xbox Live Arcade [development] to some degree."
So is Phil just opposed to the Wii’s cause because he’s on the other team, or does he have a valid point? I think that there is indeed some truth to what he is saying, simply because Nintendo is known to produce powerhouse software for their machines, but assigning an exact ratio of ‘market availability’ seems a bit silly. Each game that is brought to market appeals to a particular sector of gamers based on the game’s content.
