Topic: EA plays catch-up on the Wii

[BlackNMild2k1]

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Electronic Arts Plays Catch-Up After Shrugging Off Wii's Appeal
April 9 (Bloomberg) -- Video-game designer Nick Earl spent eight months holed up with his development team rushing to adapt ``The Godfather'' for Nintendo Co.'s Wii.

The reason for the long hours: Earl's employer, Electronic Arts Inc., like some of its competitors, underestimated demand for the Wii. Instead, game makers put most of their resources into Sony Corp.'s PlayStation 3.

Now, publishers are scrambling to get titles to the 3.56 million U.S. and Japanese Wii owners who have made the machine the top-selling game console this year.

``Those companies are backtracking,'' said Anthony Gikas, an analyst at Piper Jaffray & Co. in Minneapolis. ``They're going to need to get their best-branded product on that platform. That will take a good nine to 12 months.''

....

U.S. and Japanese sales of Wii players totaled 1.47 million in January and February, said market researchers NPD Group Inc. and Enterbrain. PlayStation 3 tallied 604,331, while stores sold 584,329 of Microsoft Corp.'s Xbox 360 consoles. Wii is also leading in Europe, said London-based researcher Screen Digest.

....

Nintendo's lead will widen, pressuring companies even more. Researcher IDC predicts Nintendo will ship 16.1 million players this year, outpacing Microsoft's 9.87 million Xbox 360s and Sony's 9.1 million PlayStation 3s. Wii game sales will total $2.2 billion, trailing only Xbox 360, said IDC, based in Framingham, Massachusetts.

Electronic Arts wasn't the only publisher slow to see Wii's appeal. New York-based Take-Two Interactive Software Inc., maker of ``Grand Theft Auto'' games, had no Wii titles when the player was released and now plans to have three this year, said spokesman Jim Ankner.

Activision Inc., based in Santa Monica, California, plans to release six Wii games this year, giving the second-largest publisher a total of 11, said spokeswoman Maryanne Lataif.

....

Game companies had expected PlayStation 3 to dominate based on the success of PlayStation 2, said John Taylor, an analyst with Arcadia Investment Corp. in Portland, Oregon.

Perceptions changed when Nintendo unveiled Wii last May in Los Angeles. Demonstration consoles attracted long lines of developers waiting to swing a virtual tennis racquet.

``People got their hands on that controller and started playing games and said, `This is fun, this is going to do better than we expected,''' Electronic Arts Chief Executive Officer Lawrence Probst said at a Morgan Stanley conference on March 5.

With six months to go before Wii's release and games requiring a year or more to develop, publishers knew they were in trouble.

...

``We came back and redeployed a lot of our resources,'' said Earl, who heads Electronic Arts' Redwood Shores studio.

The results are seen in ``Godfather,'' where players use their hands to shake the wand and an attachment, dubbed a nunchuk, back and forth as if strangling or jostling someone. The wand also can be used to punch or shoot victims.

``You really feel like you grab someone,'' Earl said.

The Wii may prove to be a windfall, since games cost just $2 million to $5 million to create, a fraction of the $20 million to $30 million spent on PlayStation 3 or Xbox 360 titles, analyst Taylor said. In addition, Wii appears to be expanding the market, rather than stealing sales from rivals, he said.

[A Ubisoft Rep. says]
``It's not really a bet anymore,'' he said. ``It's a viable system that's going to make us money.''

source: Bloomberg.com

Someones comment on this story: "Funnily enough, EA's catchup has been better than Ubisoft's planned support."

I still plan on getting The Godfather at some point, but I'm just waiting for the price to drop. Also its really good to hear that EA is infact fully onboard with Nintendo and that we won't be getting second hand ports/version of games that appear(ed) on other consoles, now or in the future.    

[GoldenPhoenix]

Impressive, I especially like to see how Wii games have such low budgets (even lower than I guessed) at 3-5million. It should be pretty interesting to see what more "big" budget games will look like on Wii, considering the quality of some of the 3rd party games out there.

[Infernal Monkey]

If it means more original IP's like Boogie then smiley face! Hopefully EA will force Criterion to get over their pointless Nintendo hatred and make a Burnout game for the Wii.

[Shift Key]

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``They're going to need to get their best-branded product on that platform. That will take a good nine to 12 months.''

I'll believe this when I see it, because at the moment all I see is ports and weird games.

[nitsu niflheim]

I like weird games.  But I also like good games.

[Smash_Brother]

I don't care if it's weird so long as it's good.

Good find, BNM.

[couchmonkey]

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Originally posted by: Shift Key

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``They're going to need to get their best-branded product on that platform. That will take a good nine to 12 months.''

I'll believe this when I see it, because at the moment all I see is ports and weird games.

...which is why they said it will take 9-12 months.  Publishers are porting because Godfather can be on the system in 8 months, whereas a brand-new game will take a year or two, depending on the scope.

When you hear about a game being copied from PS2 to Wii, it's because demand outpaced everyone's expectations. When you hear a story of a 360 game going to PS3 or vice-versa, it's because the economics of developing for those consoles demands it.  Virtua Fighter 5 can't make enough money back on just a PS3 release to be worth it.  Which scenario sounds more appealing to publishers?

That said, we may be stuck with "weird" games and second-string stuff for a while because a lot of publishers and devs have the unfortunte idea that Wii doesn't require the same attention and care as the more powerful systems.  It will sort out over time as is the case with DS.

[Smash_Brother]

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Nintendo's lead will widen, pressuring companies even more.

This is all that needs to be said.

Once that lead hits (and it will), companies will start moving their best teams over to the Wii because it'll be, by far, the most profitable system to dev for.

[Ceric]

It doesn't hurt to have one of the most repected game designers of all time poking at you for third stringing his console.

[King of Twitch]

"With six months to go before Wii's release and games requiring a year or more to develop, publishers knew they were in trouble."

11 months after E3, they're still behind. Sony is probably paying programmers not to work hard.


"Virtua Fighter 5 can't make enough money back on just a PS3 release to be worth it. Which scenario sounds more appealing to publishers?"

SC3 and RE4 :: never forget

[couchmonkey]

To be fair, games that are developed in under one year are usually cookie-cutter sequels (think Madden) or cheap liscenced games (think TMNT).  The Zeldas and Beyond Good and Evils of the world are usually in the works for 2-4 years.

[cubist]

Yeah...I was at E3 and didn't even bother to stand in line for the Wii...it was just too long.  

Who would've thought?!?  If Nintendo's lead increases this generation, the Wii will mark a great turnaround for those of us who endured the N64 and GCN era.  

The EA article was a good read.  Now we know why!?!  I'm going to be a happy gamer later this year into next year and I look forward to some announcements of great titles.  Godfather turned out to be a great gaming experience for me.  Now if we can get more than 1 year of NCAA Football titles and some online FPS stuff.  

Do it!

[The Omen]

To be fair to EA, I completely understand the reasons behind their late start.  When their games were released on the GC, like NCAA football, it would literally sell 30k copies.  That's a huge bomb.  All of their sports titles sold at basically a 10% clip of what they sold on Xbox and PS2.  10%!  That's ridiculous!    

[GoldenPhoenix]

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Originally posted by: couchmonkey
To be fair, games that are developed in under one year are usually cookie-cutter sequels (think Madden) or cheap liscenced games (think TMNT)or GTA games.  The Zeldas and Beyond Good and Evils of the world are usually in the works for 2-4 years.

Fixed for truth.

[couchmonkey]

I LOL'd.

It's possible to make a good game in a year, but people act like third parties that started working on Wii last May should have epic Adventure games and MMOs ready by now.