EA CEO Frustrated With Poor Performance on the Wii

[ChromeAlchemist]

Dude. If he wants better sales, he should release some hardcore games and not games for faggy casuals. Jeez! Its not rocket science!

So more games with guns huh? Never fails I guess...

I wouldn't say games with guns. Just games that aren't party games or have some gimmicky theme for the motion control.

I was being facetious though, because he said they...sorry "he" should "release some hardcore games and not games for faggy casuals." I'm assuming he means more "ossum gamez wit gunz!"

If he was also being sarcastic, then ignore all of that, but I don't think he was.

 

[In Limbo]

In the kingdom of the blind, the one-eyed man is king. He doesn't have any depth perception though.

"In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is stoned to death." - Joan D. Vinge

...Or rather, in the monetised video game industry, the visionary is laid-off.

 

[BigFurry]

In the kingdom of the blind, the one-eyed man is king. He doesn't have any depth perception though.

"In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is stoned to death." - Joan D. Vinge

...Or rather, in the monetised video game industry, the visionary is laid-off.

Because heaven forbid should anybody try to make original content. That's when the visionary starts his own company, eg. Tim Shcafer or the 22 people that broke off to start the Call of Duty franchise.

 

[Worgen]

really the only problem with the wii is that nintendo is making the same mistake that atari made in the 80s. Too many crap games make it really hard to seperate them from the good stuff

 

[Pendragon9]

Here's an idea. Make good games, stop blaming everything on Nintendo and learn to take some responsibility.

Is this too hard for some CEOs? I mean, come on. Nintendo has been trying lately (the new MArio game looks sweet, even if it feels like nothing but a port of Mario DS.)

 

[Quaidis]

Really the only problem with the Wii is that Nintendo is making the same mistake that Atari made in the 80s. Too many crap games make it really hard to separate them from the good stuff

Were you around in the 80s when Atari started to skydive? Atari made their own games, about one game a week, and then about one game every three days to up sales. Their quality, what quality they had, took a nose dive when the no one wanted to buy the games anymore and didn't want to buy any more Atari #### systems that had no literal improvements.

As far as I see it Nintendo's first party games, the games they labor over for years so they end up a very good quality that millions of people would buy in a heartbeat, are the driving force behind the console. They have good advertisements for these games. And they are leading the market against two jumbo god-graphix companies through the sheer number of Mario and WiiSports fans out there to boot.

Now if Nintendo did as the EA CEO says and released their games quicker, therefore 'releasing more games', and did so to the point that their games were no longer good nor fun to play, I could understand your reasoning. As of now I cannot.

The crap games are made by EA and a few other 'bottom of the barrel' companies. The only games EA tried to make that were of some quality were never advertised whatsoever. Why? I cannot speculate. Perhaps they thought that by merely being a 'hardcore' title on the Wii, the game would sell on its own - which then blew up in their face when no one knew that those hardcore games were coming out.

Due to this, the entire whine-fest made by that CEO in the first post of this thread is a sort of, "I'm not winning so I'm going to blame everyone and try to take them down with me as I plummet." I believe he wants Nintendo to advertise his games for him or something.



If you were sarcastic in your post, you can ignore my first two paragraphs.



edit - random additions to the post.

 

[Finch5ter]

*COUGH* Make better games EA *COUGH*
Who said that?

 

[keybounce]

Problems with the wii:
1. High price of games. $50 for a game is expensive.
2. Low quality of most games.
3. No ability to try it. All this "You cannot return it! Never never never. you are stuck with it, and we won't let you try it first!" tells me that the companies don't really trust that we'll like the game. So why get it?

(I get all my games at Costco, which does permit returns, but only carries a few games, or off EBay after a year and lots of reviews.)

High volume, with no way to tell what a game is? No way to return it if it's crap? I'm not touching those.

So it's late, after reviews, used; or discounted from a high-volume retailer with return permissions.

Besides, wasn't EA responsible for that disaster called "Spore"? Something about the DRM that they could kill by unplugging their server in N years? ...

I still play XCom, and M:tG, and both are old by any standard.
If NetStorm had decent UI controls, I'd still be playing it -- oh, wait, Activision turned off their servers, so I can't play it except solo. An internet game dependent on a single server.

So, EA, you want me to trust you with $50? Why should I?

 

[charlesdjones1]

I am sick and tired of Nintendo's business model that caters only to their own personal needs. There are literally millions of frustrated gamers out here who own the Wii and haven't even turned on their systems in over 6 months, why? Because there is no fresh games coming out on a consistent basis that we really want to play. EA has really been taking the hit for this and part of this is because of the way they market and sale their games themselves. The front cover of their games look like they should have come out for the 1989 NES, and not the 2009 Wii, which imediately tells the consumer, this game is not that good, it is cheap, and poorly developed. You look at PS3 and 360 third party games, and they say this is modern, it looks expensive, I want to buy this. It is simple things like that that the Wii is conveying to the public. When I walk into Walmart, or GameStop, I can simply scan over 99% of the Wii titles and go, wow, this is all cheap, pooly developed garbage that I am not going to waste my hard earned money on. Look at the success of the PS2, its main driving point for 5 years straight was having killer apps released sometimes 2 or 3 a quarter. Why is this? Because Sony backed their 3rd party support 100%, giving them ample developement tools and support across the board with the common goal of providing cutting edge gaming experiences to the user base. Nintendo on the other hand, let's see, Wii Fit, Wii Fit 2, Wii Sports Resort, Wii Music, the list goes on and on and on. Can somebody raise their hand if they were really interested in playing this crap this year? I know I for one would not stand in line for more than 5 seconds to get any one of these titles, and with NSMBW, it seems to be the only bright light in the Wii lineup coming for the next 6 months. Oh well, maybe it will take another 10 year lesson of being last behind Sony for Nintendo to finally make good, solid corporate decisions that make EVERYONE happy, not just the 5% niche market they are appealing to today. More developement teams, more franchises, more modern games released on a consistant basis and less Mario is what its going to take to really save Nintendo.

 

[Booze Zombie]

He's surprised that a gimmick console is not making that much money for him as a game maker and not a console maker?

 

[j0frenzy]

I find this kind of hilarious. The only two games that the Wikipedia article lists that EA published for the Wii that I would have bought on any system is Rock Band and Rock Band 2. One of these two games was one of the largest rip-offs I had seen in a while and I have still vowed to not touch the game until they fix it or give me an incentive to buy it for the same price as the 360/PS3 version with half the content. Of the roughly 12 games that I would not consider a waste of time, most were sports games, which if I haven't touched the actual sport, why would I touch the simulated version of it? There were a couple of Medal of Honor games which while I generally avoid FPSs on the Wii, I also generally avoid Medal of Honor games because I have never found one entertaining. Lastly was two Need for Speed games, which I wouldn't touch because I don't like racing games. So I guess my point is, release something worth my buying before blaming someone else for my not purchasing your games.

 

[AceDiamond]

Problems with the wii:
1. High price of games. $50 for a game is expensive.

Irrelevant considering that PC games frequently cost the same, and PS3 and 360 games cost more. Really you lost me on your points the instant you said this because it doesn't make any sense whatsoever.

I am sick and tired of Nintendo's business model that caters only to their own personal needs.

Yes because profit is only for selfish people.

There are literally millions of frustrated gamers out here who own the Wii and haven't even turned on their systems in over 6 months, why? Because there is no fresh games coming out on a consistent basis that we really want to play.

And this is Nintendo's fault, how?

EA has really been taking the hit for this and part of this is because of the way they market and sale their games themselves. The front cover of their games look like they should have come out for the 1989 NES, and not the 2009 Wii, which imediately tells the consumer, this game is not that good, it is cheap, and poorly developed.

So you say Nintendo's to blame then say that it is EA's own problem. Consistency much?

You look at PS3 and 360 third party games, and they say this is modern, it looks expensive, I want to buy this. It is simple things like that that the Wii is conveying to the public. When I walk into Walmart, or GameStop, I can simply scan over 99% of the Wii titles and go, wow, this is all cheap, pooly developed garbage that I am not going to waste my hard earned money on.

Still failing to see how this is Nintendo's fault. They just hand out licenses. And if they were to start cracking down on game quality it would only make them look bad despite what the majority of people on here seem to think. It's not like popular consoles haven't had their share of shitty shovelware (in descending order: PS2, PS1, SNES and/or Genesis, NES, Atari 2600).

Look at the success of the PS2, its main driving point for 5 years straight was having killer apps released sometimes 2 or 3 a quarter. Why is this? Because Sony backed their 3rd party support 100%, giving them ample developement tools and support across the board with the common goal of providing cutting edge gaming experiences to the user base.

Yeah but first you had to sort through all that shovelware I talked about. Also Sony had to learn not to be dicks to their third-parties first, something that took them the entire run of the PS1 to comprehend. I.E. not forcing everybody to make games in 3D just to show off the polygons.

Nintendo on the other hand, let's see, Wii Fit, Wii Fit 2, Wii Sports Resort, Wii Music, the list goes on and on and on. Can somebody raise their hand if they were really interested in playing this crap this year?

Way to list a bunch of Nintendo games, leave out Punch-Out (which was damn good) and then not even mention any third party titles. Again, consistency is a problem here. Despite what people may think here, games like The Conduit, Madworld, and House of the Dead: Overkill actually did decently enough because they don't need to make 3 million sales to make a profit. Nor did they need "Super Special Awesome Limited Collectors Game of the Year Editions" to be made either just to sell

I know I for one would not stand in line for more than 5 seconds to get any one of these titles, and with NSMBW, it seems to be the only bright light in the Wii lineup coming for the next 6 months.

Yeah if you're not into NMH2, or Red Steel 2, or not paying attention, then yes NSMBW is the only thing coming out that would be good.

Oh well, maybe it will take another 10 year lesson of being last behind Sony for Nintendo to finally make good, solid corporate decisions that make EVERYONE happy, not just the 5% niche market they are appealing to today. More developement teams, more franchises, more modern games released on a consistant basis and less Mario is what its going to take to really save Nintendo.

So despite Nintendo having profits out the wazoo they're in trouble? I'm sure they are. In trouble of drowining in money. You seem to waver in between wanting to blame Nintendo for the inability of third parties to make games that don't suck (and then take the time to market them), and blaming the third parties themselves. The fact is Nintendo is not to blame for people talking shit about the Wii, then trying to develop for it, and failing hilariously. Do remember that EA was very adamant about not developing for it until they tried to go big with Dead Space: Extraction, and then didn't market it. But I'm sure it's Nintendo's fault, right?

(hint: no)

I'm sure we could make a case for Nintendo being too secretive with its hardware or whatever but even the makers of the Conduit worked around that, so it's not an excuse.

 

[Something Amyss]

Scarily, the comments he made run parallel with my own user-side feelings about the Wii to the point it's scary. It keeps seeming like the Wii sells enough on its own they just kind of left it to its own devices. Could EA do better than they are without Nintendo's help? I'm sure they could. Still seems like Nintendo's not doing much, though.

 

[Carlston]

Lol awww poor uncreative turd.

Well instead of Madden 2999 how bout you get back Origin? Wing comannder, Ultima? The franchises that made you EA.

Once EA was the company that helped the little guy, get games published by indies. Now your such a one trick Sports/shooter/generic game pony your not making money?

To bad. Maybe people learned there is no reason to by A new EA football game when you just download this years rosters...

 

[zombie711]

dead space on the wii only sold 10000 copies but on the pluse side it's cheap now

 

[Twilight_guy]

He looks bummed that's for sure.

Like he's all out of peanut butter.

He looks like he just ran out of toilet paper actually.

I don't really think it's fair to say that Nintendo is the reason for his companies problems on the Wii. If games aren't selling well, then you move to another system or you generate more hype for your games yourself. You can't say "the system isn't doing well so we can't do anything". It's too bad that the games aren't selling but we are in a recession and the Wii is targeting an audience that has the dedication to buy up games no matter what like more hardcore gamers do.

 

[GamingAwesome1]

3rd party develpers should get off their asses and make a game that's actually good and not some watered down crappy port of a better game on another console or a rubbish mini-game collection.

It's not really Nintendo's fault that these third party companies can't make Wii games for shit.

Nintendo also needs to release some fresh new titles as opposed to the same mindless shit over and over again. Their most hotly anticipated game of the year (Mario Bros Wii) is a god-damn remake of a DS game which was a remake of previous Super Mario's.

I can't believe people are anticipating a game that when you look past the sheen the underlying game is about 20 years old.

 

[Kellerb]

He looks bummed that's for sure.

Like he's all out of peanut butter.

hehehe. peanut butter.

 

[JourneyThroughHell]

What does he want, 3rd pary developers aren't welcome on the Wii UNLESS they're making shitty stick-waggling collections.
Nintendo is probably the only company that knows how to make games for it (well, Sega might know it... scratch that) and even they are starting to lose it.