EA’s Riccitiello Talks Wii Pricing, Nintendo Third Party Support

CEO of Electronic Arts John Riccitiello has said that if the Wii retailed for $99 sales would “explode” and that the company is unsatisfied with Nintendo’s third party support.

In an interview with Industry Gamers, Riccitiello said that while Wii sales did “exceptionally” well in 2007 and 2008, the last two years have not seen the same growth. “I think if they were to price down to $99, they would explode,” Riccitiello said, “I think they’ve now got competition, in the form of gesture-based gaming from Sony and Microsoft.”

He also spoke about the situation of third party developers on the Wii. Nintendo are famous for relying on first party ‘steady’ titles such as Mario and Zelda, and more recently the Wii Sports series, to keep software sales up. This is a problem, says Riccitiello: “If they were to find ways to promote third-party content better, as opposed to first-party content, and would hit pricing, I think the platform would see new life.” He pointed out Apple as a company that’s “all third-party content.”

“It’s really tough to come up with a dozen great titles that have been platform defining for them that weren’t their own,” Riccitiello said. ”I don’t care whether it’s Mario or Twilight Princess or GoldenEye; it was their own content. I’m going back to N64, and I can go back to SNES if you want, but they’ve never really been a heavy third-party supporting system.”

He noted that it wasn’t a lack of trying, but that “they start the morning thinking what’s best for their own intellectual property.”

This isn’t the first time Nintendo has been under fire for its third party support or pricing. This time last year Riccitiello said he’d like to see lower prices for the Wii, saying that it could take over former PlayStation 2 sales. Nintendo’s own Regis Fil Aime also previously acknowledged the company wasn’t very good at creating core games, which is where first party developers could step in. However, companies such as Sega have expressed disappointment with “mature” titles on the Wii and have suggested they won’t pursue any further development.

It’s a very tricky position for Nintendo. Their dominance in the motion gaming space might soon be coming to an end (“might” – we’ll have to see what Christmas sales for Move and Kinect are like) so there may be a need for a better reliance on third party developers such as EA. If publishers are feeling disgruntled and don’t want to release games for the Wii can sport and fitness games keep sales up when both Sony and Microsoft now offer similar experiences?