EA wishes it had backed Nintendo Wii over the PS3 & Xbox 360
The Nintendo Wii has surprised everyone in the gaming industry with its success, with early sale even surpassing Nintendo’s hopes (hence the ongoing stock shortages). The Wii’s dominance in this generation has also meant 3rd-party games developers and publishers have had to change their minds, and backtrack on business strategies. And EA is the biggest of that bunch.
In an interview with the San Jose Mercury News, CEO of Electronic Arts, John Riccitiello admitted that his company had put too much emphasis on the PS3 and Xbox 360 at the beginning of this console cycle. Which meant it had been forced to ignore the potential of the Wii, the console now leading the way in terms of sales and mainstream acceptance. He 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).
The success of the Wii has certainly left industry figures and high profile companies with egg on their faces. But unlike past generations where at this stage, one console has ridden ahead and left its rivals behind, the PS3 and Xbox 360 are still doing relatively well, despite being in a definite 2nd and 3rd place. Riccitiello commented:
[What’s] unusual in this cycle is there’s a second and third place that is meaningful, against which we can build a profitable business. That’s a good and positive thing.
It’s an interesting point, as EA is still managing to make some great revenue from developing and releasing games on both the PS3 and Xbox 360. I can see this generation ending with all three companies: Sony, Nintendo, and Microsoft, making a profit and selling enough of its machines to walk away happy.
This would be good news for consumers as it means all three would develop new machines, and keep options open for consumers. Unless of course they all got together and decided to end the fanboy wars and build one universal console to cater for everyone.
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30 Responses to “EA wishes it had backed Nintendo Wii over the PS3 & Xbox 360”
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July 28th, 2008
DAVE are you pushing for a universal console…or possibly funding this super console? because you seem to raise it quite a lot.
July 28th, 2008
Universal console already exists and is in more households than a Wii, 360 or PS3 combined already… its called a computer.
July 28th, 2008
A universal console would be stupid Dave, WE NEED COMPETITION!!!
I have a PS3 and I wouldn’t buy a Wii or 360. The PS3 is just the console for me, but I like that it has strong competition, means improvements are constantly made as they all copy and try to out do each other and helps keep prices low.
July 28th, 2008
Ivan stop changing names.
July 28th, 2008
Lol no, it’s just a blogging trick to get people to read old articles. As there’s a debate continuing on that article, I thought I’d direct people back to it. I do think it’s good idea though… if completely unworkable.
July 28th, 2008
I’m sure the 360/PS3 owners wished EA would’ve bet on Wii too…it doesn’t take a huge budget to develope crap games…let the Wii get some love too
Morne
July 28th, 2008
It’s clearly evident that the PS3 swings the bigger cock compared to 360’s small tweener
And Nintendo Weener…..it needs to rot in hell….in Satan’s asshole! LMAO
July 28th, 2008
please refrain from havin homosexual fantasies about consoles sega boy… stop “CAD” ing it up…
looks like the pansies and the grandmas that buy nintendo Wii are kickin ass… in a financial perspective….
but then again… why trust EA??? their sports brands arent exactly revolutionary…. if there wasnt 2k sports or Winning Eleven… they wouldnt even try anythiing new with their sports titles… assholes….
July 29th, 2008
developing for wii is a sure win for all developers.
cheap development + huge market = easy money.
July 29th, 2008
Um, hey EA, nothing’s stopping you from developing NOW. DUH.
July 29th, 2008
meh…this only shows the colossal lack of foresight at EA. i swear, krusty the clown must be running the show over there….
July 29th, 2008
Please refrain from being a sick FUCK darkwhitehair…..those comments are meant for humor only, not homosexuality….You must be tempted to think that PS3 actually a dangling dick hanging on the outside of it’s USB ports
ROFL hee hee
….By the way, wasn’t Nintendo Wii’s name originally “Nintendo Revolution” if I’m not mistaken anyone??
July 29th, 2008
@ Darkwhitehair: I’ve come to the conclusion that you must be a girl. You’re the only idiot on here that actually takes my sarcastic comments seriously, and thats what girls do. They take EVERYTHING seriously
lol what a loserrr 
July 29th, 2008
Real gamers laugh at the wii. The issue here is money. Obviously they aren’t concerned about the quality of games. The wii has no quality, and if EA is about to start releasing stuff like Madden NFL Fit, or Super Mario Football, then I’ll stop buying their games. It’s bringing shame to the gaming industry that a crappy console which is in no comparison to either ps3 or 360, is even getting attention. Nintendo hurt the gaming industry more than it helped, because now developers want to develop crap to make profit. But I guess nintendo said that if it was going out, it was going to take everybody down with them lol.
July 29th, 2008
While Nintendo did not set fire to the room w/ their own E3 presentation, it was the 3rd party Wii titles shown there that DID sem to point to 2009 looking to be the year of the 3rd party Wii developer.
CONDUIT, DEADLY CREATURES, MADWORLD, CLONE WARS, DEAD RISING & multiplatformers like FORCE UNLEASHED, GH:WORLD TOUR (WITH instead of ports with motion control tacked on….
Look out casuals, grandmas & soccer moms….”hardcore” (what does that really mean, BTW? I get numerous answers) games are heading Wii’s way big time.
July 29th, 2008
BTW…the part after the GH mention should say WITH REAL DLC……wait, Harmonix said it was impossible on Wii for RB? WRONG!!!!!!
July 29th, 2008
Kev,
I’m with you on this one. How does EA’s “All Play” sports series for the Wii back this article up? It’s like they’re TRYING to make the crappiest possible games for the Wii.
-Arvis
July 29th, 2008
“Real gamers laugh at the wii.”
Thats not really true. I own a Wii, 360 & a PS3 and a mid-high end PC (well it was when I built it, wahh
).
I got them for the GAMES, not the fucking hardware they run on or the age rating the games carry or how they look e.g. go look at eternal sonata on 360, kiddy looking cell shaded with a ’story book’ look, but its an awesome game – funny how wind waker got attacked for that tho huh
.
Its all about the games, whether its 10 good games on 360, or 9 on PS3 or 200 on the Wii.
July 29th, 2008
Oh I should probably add that I agree with EA.
They’re out to make money not picasso’s (as much as I wish they would), so going where you can make more money makes sense to me.
July 29th, 2008
I think EA should be subject to…BUKKAKE!….Sprayed down, with my SPERM……
July 30th, 2008
It should say
“EA wishes it had backed Nintendo Wii over the Xbox 360″
The last quarter the PS3 was the biggest moneymaker for EA, even better than the PC
The xbox 360 sold barely like the PS2
In fact the PS3 make more money for EA than the xbox 360 and the Wii made together for EA
http://play.tm/story/19993
July 30th, 2008
Nice link jaime, obviously there will be a problem with the site, the fact that ps3 is beating 360 is unheard of in some peoples eyes on this site. I suspect the argument against this link will be… hmmm….its not a credible source?
July 30th, 2008
bourne – it’s credible. doesn’t mean a thing since the tie in ratio of 360 games to 360 is much higher than ps3 games to ps3.
it only shows that 360 players have found better games than EA games to buy.
July 30th, 2008
Kev,
I want to argue with your point… but find I cannot.
…
GOODBYE FOREVER!! (kidding)
-Arvis
July 30th, 2008
Arvis – i expect to see you on psn sometime soon when i get back lol. We should possibly organise a gamer.blorge mass game if everyone has one type of game.
July 30th, 2008
Bourne,
I wish. Friends-only matches on Warhawk are the best. Too bad not everyone has it.
-Arvis
July 30th, 2008
I remember when EA took over the Bond 007 games. Man was I pissed to find that out. EA’s name has become sh*t. They put out the same games year in and year out!
July 30th, 2008
Arvis – Yeah im hoping to pick up warhawk here cheap, i haven’t found it back home in England, looks awesome and i cant wait.
Wylie – which 007 games are you talking about? I remember nightfire was an ok game, very very entertaining on the replay and multiplayer (not online) and the rest were very “meh”.
July 31st, 2008
Bourne,
You “haven’t found it?” Isn’t available for download on the European Store?
-Arvis
August 1st, 2008
Arvis – Yeah it is available, but i’d rather not download it, because of the length of download and incase my hard drive were to fail. I cant find it in any British stores so far, so i’m turning to Canadian ones.