Sigh. Here we go again with the “The Wii can’t sustain 3rd party, non-casual titles.” With the disappointing sales of Dead Space Extraction (a mere 9,000 in the first week) for the Nintendo Wii, EA CEO John Riccitiello admits:
“To be honest with you, the Wii platform has been a little weaker than we had certainly anticipated…there’s no lack of frustration to be doing that at precisely the time where we have the strongest third-party share.”
In a way, it seems like a self fulfilling prophecy. Everyone complains (loudly) that the Wii has too many casual games, then when it gets a “real one”, no one buys it. This could largely be a problem with perception, but also the disappointment of more stripped down versions of the games made in order to accommodate the Wii’s graphics. Whatever the case, EA is aware of the problem and already has a solution–working more directly with Nintendo. Continues Riccitiello:
“We’re reaching out to Nintendo to find ways to partner to push third-party software harder…I frankly think they need more beats in a year than they get out of a first-party slate to be able to have the Wii software platform perform as well as they would like. We’re building the products I think are the most highly rated on the platform, and at this point in time, generating the most revenue of any third-party.”
“Wii is where we’re missing it,” he added. “I really do think the opportunity exists to find different ways to partner with with first-party in this case to help establish in the minds of the consumer legitimacy of some of these other brands when they’re going out multiplatform because very few multiplatform titles are succeeding on the Wii so far.”
Constant re-emphasizing of EA’s value aside, he’s right, they’re EA and they should be selling more titles given their dominate status in the third party arena. Could their efforts spark some justice on behalf of the wildly popular yet still disrespected Wii? I hope so, ’cause I’m really tired of being called a casual gamer just because I happen to enjoy my Wii.
