PSP World

Inside EA's New Wii Strategy

It took a global economic recession and sales in excess of 40 million units, before game publisher Electronic Arts sat up and paid attention to the Wii. But last week, during the company’s quarterly earnings conference, CEO John Riccitiello acknowledged that developing for the Wii had become a major priority for his company. The publisher announced that it would bring a motion-controlled port of its popular survival-horror game Dead Space to the Nintendo console later in 2009. Riccitiello added that this would be the first of many new EA projects that would seek to bring a more “Core” experience to the family-friendly console. Why has it taken so long for large publishers like EA to recognize the potential to profit from high-quality releases on the most popular current-gen video game console? What does this move mean for the future of EA and console gaming in general?

Porting cross-platform games to the Wii is nothing new, even for EA. Last year, for example, it brought out a Wii version of its mediocre racing title, Need for Speed: Undercover. The game featured buggy controls, horribly outdated graphics (even by Wii standards) and utterly forgettable gameplay. It was, as many have already pointed out, par for the course in terms of third-party quality on the Wii. However, something about John Riccitiello's conference statements last week make us believe that EA is serious about changing its approach. We have no doubt that a big part of EA’s new strategy means directing greater resources and quality control towards its Wii projects. Gone, we think, are the days of substandard ports.

Dead Space Wii marks a new direction for Electronic Arts.

What is the reason for this sudden turnaround? The Wii has fought on multiple fronts to garner developer support, even as it continues to break new sales records. First, it suffered from the stigma that it was a console designed for young children, a notion that carried over from the Gamecube era and has not been helped by the library of kid-friendly games. Executives undoubtedly worried that mature titles like Dead Space would fail to find an audience on the Nintendo console. Secondly, Nintendo itself has been a hindrance to third-party development on the console, up until recently. The first party games that it publishes are of such high quality, and attract such a fervent following, that it leaves little room for other developers to compete. The top-five best selling games for the Nintendo Wii are all games made by Nintendo.

Recently, however, Nintendo has left a wide a gap in the software lineup for 2009. At last year’s EA, fans complained that Nintendo had little coming down the pipeline to satisfy the so-called “hardcore” fans. These might be the same “core” gamers that EA hopes to attract with its new lineup of higher-quality Wii games. Furthermore, the economic recession has had a tremendous impact on the HD gaming market. Amidst studio closures and massive layoffs, few companies can afford to devote the massive resources required to create fully HD games on the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3. The reason is because assets like graphics and sound are more expensive to produce when they need to be near-Hollywood quality. Wii game development is closer in cost to last-generation titles, and this has to look attractive to companies like EA who are seeking to reduce costs.

What does this all mean for us gamers? The good news for Wii owners is that they can soon expect a wider variety of better games for their system, as third-party developers really start to get serious about the console. Games like MadWorld and Dead Space will open the door for more mature, even “M” rated games on the machine. We wouldn’t be surprised to see a new Rockstar project announced on the Wii very soon.

The bad news for HD gamers is that the recession is taking its toll on many smaller companies that may have been working on games you wanted to play. We recently found out about the cancellation of the HD Indiana Jones game by LucasArts (and its new status as a Wii/PSP project). Turok 2 was also recently canned.

Look for more publishers to follow EA’s lead in the coming months, as the Wii lives up to its sales numbers and really does take its place as a lead platform this console generation.

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