Riccitiello: We'll rival Nintendo on its own platform

February 4th, 2009, 17:28 Posted By: wraggster

A confident John Riccitiello has stated that Electronic Arts can rival Nintendo's success on the Wii home console.

Speaking during a conference call, the CEO detailed a renewed focus on the popular machine, as the publisher dedicates half of its home console output to the Wii.

"The Nintendo Wii is even more important than one year ago. It is a clear leader in this cycle," said Riccitiello. "They are getting half our emphasis in terms of title count."

EA Sports games are key to breaking the Wii market, said Riccitiello, with the new Wii MotionPlus accessory enabling EA to increase quality and deliver the type of gameplay experiences associated with Nintendo's own first-party output.

"You will see we are taking great advantage of their new hardware addition with the motion sensor," he said. "What that is going to give us is the kind of gameplay we think will rival Nintendo on their own platform, and we are bringing marketing together in such a way that we think we can get noticed in ways that no other third party will."

Two titles central to this are EA Sports Active, the fitness game due later this year, and a new tennis franchise, which also makes use of the Wimbledon license.

"We're going strong, right out of the box, with EA Sports," declared Riccitiello.

"EA Sports Active is taking advantage of the world's fascination with fitness - the strength of the Wii Fit platform - with a spectacular title in my judgement that's coming out in our first quarter."

"The second thing that is coming out in the quarter is we are launching our tennis SKU, and initially Wii only, and following it up with other franchises."

Along with more MySims releases, EA plans to market its Wii range collectively, rather than as individual titles.

"We are bringing three titles together, and we are aggressively marketing them," said Riccitiello.

Yesterday, EA reported a loss of USD 641 million, the decision to close 12 facilities and increase redundancies to 1100 across the group.

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...s-own-platform

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