EA - Wii Caught Us By Surprise 185
A Next Generation story details comments by EA's CEO John Riccitiello about the surprise hit that is the Wii. The exec as much as admitted that they 'bet on the wrong horse' by focusing on the PS3 and 360 during the console transistion, and now are turning the mighty corporate ship as fast as they can to stay with Nintendo's success. "Nevertheless, Riccetello said that EA had the second-largest market share on Wii as of March with 19 percent, thanks mainly to Tiger Woods PGA Tour. Only Nintendo had a larger share. The firm shipped six new Wii titles in fiscal 2007. EA also shipped eight titles on Nintendo DS. The emergence of online, wireless and geographical differences in the console realm also made things complicated in fiscal '07."
Good Thing? (Score:5, Insightful)
(...oh, and...first?)
Surely it did (Score:5, Insightful)
Understandable (Score:5, Insightful)
EA had the luxury of changing teams while Sony had to figure out how to stick with theirs, and so far the haven't been able to do so.
Re:Surely it did (Score:4, Insightful)
Wii -- completely new control system, so something of a new way to game
Yeah, sounds like EA is a bit of a mismatch, eh?
Re:Good Thing? (Score:2, Insightful)
You weren't the only one, EA... (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Surely it did (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, the thing about new and disruptive technologies, is nobody really sees them coming.
For years, they've been on the march of "better graphics, more of the same kind of game play" that they haven't been able to look outside of that scope and foresee the effects of the Wii.
All of a sudden someone comes along, says "graphics aren't the whole point, and, hey, look at this new controller". The rules change. A lot of people who weren't into games (or losing interest, or whatever) stand up and decide that is exactly what they've been looking for, and where do I get one. It's only once it's become wildly popular and something you can't ignore, that you have to re-evaluate what you thought.
In fairness, I don't think anyone saw the Wii coming or could have planned on the fact that simpler game play, with less intense graphics, that actually involved moving around would have captivated so many people. You're probably right to an extent, but from their position, EA would have looked at the Wii and said "Well, I don't see that being a big deal". Now they're finding out they were horribly wrong.
Me, I still can't get over how much fun the Wii Sports which came with my Wii is -- I mean, bowling of all things? Who knew? These are exactly the kind of games I've wanted -- only I didn't know it, I just knew I couldn't play/stand most games anymore.
Cheers
Re:Surely it did (Score:3, Insightful)
That's because I started to realize that Nintendo knows what people want better than the people themselves.
Everyone bitched about the Wind Waker. Wind Waker comes out to stellar reviews and praise.
Everyone called the DS a gimmick. Now it is dominating the field.
When I saw the Wii, I wasn't going to doubt Nintendo's direction.
Re:Madden? (Score:2, Insightful)
Lets see how Madden fares this year on the Wii. I think it will do very well, since last years version showed that the controls work surprisingly well and are a lot of fun (as you mentioned yourself) and this year the Wii version should be out simultaneously to the other platforms.
Everyone was blindsided (Score:4, Insightful)
Instead they're all running around in a panic and screaming: "Titles for the Wii are coming, don't worry!". The problem is that this is a re-deployment of resources brought upon by the unexpected market share of a system, instead of that system's uniques features. Or in other words, it was a bean counter along the corporate hierarchy who said "Holy cow, this is thing is selling like hot cakes, we need games out NOW" instead of some developer taking a look at the cool new control system and saying "You know, I could really do something amazing with this" and proceeding to annoy bean counters to realize his idea.
The end result is that this first flood of titles is crap, taking very little advantage of the Wii's control system. Things will get worse before they get better, as was the case with the DS's early life cycle.
Re:Surely it did (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Surely it did (Score:3, Insightful)
Uh, huh?
Isn't the problem more along the lines of EA was focusing on their core userbase, and then Nintendo introduced a lot of new gamers who weren't part of their core userbase before? I think you have this exactly backwards... the Wii isn't successful because hard-core gamers are buying it (although they are), it's successful because it's selling to people who don't typically buy game consoles. And that's the market EA had nothing planned for.
Re:Surely it did (Score:3, Insightful)
NHL Hockey on the Wii? :( (Score:2, Insightful)
Can someone tell where my NHL 2008 on the Wii is? The controlling scheme would be so simple - Use the analog stick on the nunchuck to move, like every other NHL game. Configure the game so it knows whether you are left or right handed. Hold the wiimote and nunchuck in parallel, as if you were holding a hockey stick. Move the hockey stick around to stick handle. To help the Wii system understand what you're trying to do with the puck, hold down B to shoot and Z to pass. A quick flick of the wrists for a wrister, and a windup for a slapshot. It seems so obvious to me that this would be a killer game on the Wii. I almost want to get my hands on the Wii developer kit just so I can build a prototype of the controlling scheme to get EA Sports on the right track.
Right now, I'm stuck playing Nintendo Ice Hockey [wikipedia.org] (circa 1988), and it just isn't cutting it. I've considered ponying up a few dollars for a couple Gamecube controllers and NHL 2006, but I can't say I'm that excited about the idea, since I already have NHL 07 on the PC.
Re:Surely it did (Score:3, Insightful)
But what about everything else EA does?
Looking on their website, they list 14 "new releases" going back to 2/21/07. Every one of them is a sequel, except "Boom Boom Rocket".
Even outside the sports genre, EA is not well known for having many brand new games. They publish a lot of "xyz 2" and "abc the follow on adventures".
Hence, it's not surprising that the Wii caught them off guard. They don't have any finger on anything new in the gaming market. They're largely a market follower, not a leader. They consistently go with what they know.
Not that there's anything wrong with that, but I don't think anyone should expect EA to have a good sense of what the next "hot thing" will be.
Still fails to get it (Score:2, Insightful)