Topic: EA: Wii is confounding, but successful

"Wii Is 'Confounding to People,' says EA's Riccitiello

With more than 56 million units sold worldwide and all the incredible success Nintendo has had with the Wii, the platform still poses a bit of a conundrum for the industry as a whole. Third parties can't ignore its massive installed base, but at the same time, it's clearly Nintendo that dominates the software charts. Companies that have invested heavily in the Wii, like EA and Ubisoft, have both talked about Wii weakness bringing down their earnings of late. Meanwhile analysts and developers are talking about the Wii bubble possibly deflating now, as substandard software floods the platform.

It's absolutely mind boggling that three years into the lifecycle of the Wii publishers still are seemingly in experimentation mode; they just can't figure it out. IndustryGamers had a chance to speak with EA CEO John Riccitiello on the phone today, and since he complained of Wii weakness just a few weeks ago, we decided to pick his brain on the subject.

Riccitiello began by clarifying his position on the Wii. Ultimately, he's still happy with his company's success on the platform. “I'm not as negative on it [as you might think], but I tend to be a little less sugar coated in our earnings calls, so if you stack up my language against some of our competitors' CEOs it can come across that way because I did tell people that the Wii business was coming in below expectations. But let's be realistic about what really happened for EA on Wii this year. Our year-to-date Wii revenues have doubled versus last year; we have a 19% share. I don't think any third party publisher has a share higher than that on any platform... I'd have to double check that; we're in the 20s on 360/PS3 and Activision may be up there on one of those platforms. But Wii is a very successful third-party platform for EA," he said.

He then defended EA's own Wii failures, noting that publishers (EA included) are still figuring the system out. "I think it's also fair to say that people are still grappling with it. I think Dead Space Extraction was one of the best pieces of software built on the platform and it did not perform well. It's a strong IP but for some reason it did not resonate in a way that brought consumers to the store to buy it. And Madden hasn't performed to my expectations so far this year, even though it's a fabulous piece of software. EA Sports Active and our Hasbro stuff have done really, really well. So you start to create a certain perception in your mind of the type of consumer that works on the Wii, that's a little different, doesn't have the core gamer in mind, etc. But there are an awful lot of core gamers that have this platform and there are oftentimes some surprising breakthroughs that feel pretty core."

He added, "I think the Wii is confounding to people because it's so darn big and successful. Even this year, what most people perceive as a down year, they're going to sell just in the Western markets somewhere in the mid-teens of millions of hardware units, which is a blow-away success for a console. And yet it's lower than they (and we) originally thought. But that's a little bit like saying they won the Super Bowl by a smaller point spread."

The bottom line would appear to be that catering to and marketing to that Wii audience is going to remain a challenge for publishers. As Riccitiello points out, this has always been somewhat true for Nintendo consoles, but we think the problem has been exacerbated on the Wii.

Riccitiello continued, "Did I think Dead Space and Madden were going to succeed on the platform? Yes, and I believe to this day that anyone who picks up those products will have a good entertainment experience that's worth more than we charge for. They look great, they play great, and are every bit what a hit should be and they didn't resonate. And I'm very proud of the teams that built them. So I think we have continued learning to do with the way people interact with that piece of hardware, and how you market to that consumer. I think, in general, publishers have had trouble finding sustained success and consistent understanding of what makes a success on Nintendo platforms historically because they're so oriented towards first-party content like Mario and Zelda. So I think the Wii is going to be an evolving picture [for third parties]."

SOURCE: http://www.industrygamers.com/news/wii-is-confounding-to-peop...

I just saw line after line of boring garble.

^^And it's comments like this that are the reason Kotaku posts stuff like "EA/Ubi CEO says games don't sell on Wii" or whatnot, when in actuality, they're just not having as much success as anticipated and are looking for ways to tweak things. Of course, that's not as hit-grabbing as their misleading headlines. Thanks for the post.

So...with this in mind, the thing I heard about EA pulling Wii support doesn't make any sense. Are they still doing that, or what?

Only one branch of EA is no longer doing Wii games (EA Montreal IIRC). EA as a whole would be crazy to pull support...after all, we're probably only a few months away from EA Sports Active: Even More Workouts. (And I love EA Sports Active, BTW.)

Commercials, EA, commercials. Where exactly was anyone supposed to find out that Deadspace: Extraction existed? Advertising on sites where the clientele are well-informed Nintendo Fans is an absolute waste of money--we all knew the game existed a year ago.

@Moco Loco: Ah, thanks for the clarification. I'd heard that ALL of EA was pulling out, but that just didn't sound right. Any idea why that one studio pulled off?

This doesn't surprise me, but then neither would EA going bankrupt or getting bought by Microsoft...

I just checked a few different sources, and the consensus actually seems to be that EA Montreal is putting the Wii on the backburner rather than abandoning it completely. They will be looking closely at Christmas sales of their existing Wii titles and go from there, but they currently see themselves focusing on the more predictable PS3/360 market rather than the hit-or-miss Wii market.

I think that same predictablility is one of the reasons I don't own a PS3 or 360...though the 360 is unpredictable in its own way.

@Maco Loco: I assume you're referring to the Red Ring Of Get My Xbox Off The Radiator.

On topic, it's a case of that the developers haven't worked out who the Wii audience is: people who watch TV.

For the millionth time - No. That is an incorrect assumption.

You people need to start learning some business basics before making assessments on business.

Only one branch of EA is no longer doing Wii games (EA Montreal IIRC). EA as a whole would be crazy to pull support...after all, we're probably only a few months away from EA Sports Active: Even More Workouts. (And I love EA Sports Active, BTW.)

Actually. EA in general is moving towards digital gaming, reallocating resources to iPhone and digital distribution gaming and buying Playfish. It's pulling resources from ALL consoles. - http://www.gamepro.com.au/article/328662/ea_john_riccitiello_...

When I read Swerd_Murd's post, it reminded me of you, WaltzElf. Not without reason, obviously.

Also, the link you posted isn't working for me for some reason.

WaltzElf, you are saying TV advertisement is unnecessary?
I don't understand... every time people say that publishers need to advertise their games, you berate them and claim they know nothing about business.

So if TV advertisement is worthless, they might as well pull all web ads and all mag ads. Then they'll just release their game silently and expect it to sell like hotcakes.

No, he says that advertisement is not a cure-all like many people on Nintendo Life seem to think. It may help, yes, but it's foolish to argue that a game that sold like crap would've sold like crazy if only there had been enough ads.

I firmly believe that A Boy and His Blob would have moved more copies by several orders of magnitude if only there had been some TV advertisement.

You may be right, NotEnoughGolds...but it's still not right to assume the same about EVERY game. With A Boy and His Blob, I think advertising would have helped because of the accessible gameplay (from what I understand of it) and super-cute graphics attracting some of the less serious gamers who currently don't even know the game exists. With some other games, that wouldn't really work out.

They could make a game called Lario in a side scrolling 2D fashion and sales would pick up. Just saying.

these publishers have think about how they advertise there games.
more coverage may bring in more slaes. but the need to decide, is the game worth spending about 100 grand on rv advertising, if they only get 80 grand back.
maybe, a better approach would be for these companies to get a tour bus to go to schools, local shooping centres, anywhere they can to get people on board and try out there new games.
heck, even if games stores setup a demo console in the corner of their shops would get people trying the games before they bought them.

A TV ad is not the be-all-and-end-all of marketing or advertising. TV ads are good for mass consumable products, but they don't sell that many more niche products (such as "hardcore" games). There are better avenues to market for those products.

I get sick and tired of people saying "TV AD TV AD TV AD!" when the reality is that a TV ad would result in a minimal lift in sales and when you consider a TV advertising campaign is horrendously expensive, it's simply not worth it.

There is a mass exodus away from TV (and physical print) advertising, anyway. Online advertising does better for marketers these days, as it gives them much more precise data on the success of the campaign than simply hoping that people pay attention to the ad.

Video game publishers, for the most part, are much better off marketing through social networking and online media, which they are already doing - so no, marketing is not the problem when a game's sales are low. Like I've already said a million times, it's the actual demographic of people that OWN THE CONSOLE that is the cause for low sales.

I firmly believe that A Boy and His Blob would have moved more copies by several orders of magnitude if only there had been some TV advertisement.

On what basis? Give me some statistics, research, data, or marketing theory that could possibly support your assumption? Or are you just guessing (yes, you are).

That's pretty much it. Every game that gets produced has a marketing budget, believe it or not - and marketers do do these kinds of things already. For the most part I believe that publishers do market the games properly, but the greatest marketing campaigns in the world can't help sell a game whose audience was limited from the get-go.