EA Concerned With Wii’s Performance

John Riccitiello, CEO of Electronic Arts has recently spoken to Gamasutra regarding a variety of topics, but most interestingly; the Nintendo Wii. Riccitiello expressed disappointment with the Wii’s sales, especially with regards to its current US price point. ‘œIf they maintain $199 and don’t innovate, they’re going to have a hard time competing’ Riccitiello said, as well as pointing out that the Wii has the possibility to pick up previous PS2 sales, if it lowered its price.

The problem with the Wii is that it seems people don’t tend to buy many games, getting Wii Sports or Wii Fit is sufficient for most players. The Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 have a much more dedicated fanbase, meaning that they’re more likely to shell out on games.

The casual consumer who buys the Wii isn’t spending on the big AAA titles, creating a problem for game developers. Riccitiello stated that Nintendo has ‘œalways been first-party-centric… they’re learning how to be third-party supportive’, hinting at Nintendo’s failure to support studios other than the ones it owns.

Nintendo have a problem here; if publishers don’t see the sales they need, especially in light of the economic climate, making games for the Wii will be harder and harder to justify. If they can cut their development costs and only focus on Sony and Microsoft’s offerings, why wouldn’t they? More hardcore  titles on the Wii such as Dead Space: Extraction have received positive reviews yet failed to deliver in the stores, highlighting the fact that Wii players simply do not want that type of game.

This is a similar issue to one I wrote about a few months ago: casual gaming isn’t sustainable in the long term, especially for developers. Nintendo seem to be focused on hardware and their own closely knit software titles, but there is a real risk of them falling out of favour with developers.  If you don’t have the games, it doesn’t matter how impressive your consoles is, nor how cheaply you can sell it.