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Forums - Sales Discussion - Electronic Arts Plays Catch-Up After Shrugging Off Wii's Appeal (Bloomberg)

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=amWmy6_JG16U&refer=home

Found on  http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=150110

 

April 9 (Bloomberg) -- Video-game designer Nick Earl spent eight months holed up with his development team rushing to adapt ``The Godfather'' for Nintendo Co.'s Wii.

The reason for the long hours: Earl's employer, Electronic Arts Inc., like some of its competitors, underestimated demand for the Wii, whose motion-activated wand lets players wield a virtual sword, mimic real golf swings or strangle a victim. Instead, game makers put most of their resources into Sony Corp.'s PlayStation 3, which was released two days earlier in November with a more conventional hand controller.

Now, publishers are scrambling to get titles to the 3.56 million U.S. and Japanese Wii owners who have made the machine the top-selling game console this year.

``Those companies are backtracking,'' said Anthony Gikas, an analyst at Piper Jaffray & Co. in Minneapolis. ``They're going to need to get their best-branded product on that platform. That will take a good nine to 12 months.''

A shortage of Wii games contributed to a 25 percent drop in sales in February from a year earlier at Redwood City, California-based Electronic Arts, the world's largest video-game publisher, said Todd Greenwald, an analyst at Nollenberger Capital Partners in San Francisco. Industry sales in February rose 28 percent.

Shares of Electronic Arts have risen 3.1 percent this year, the smallest gain among the four biggest publishers.

Top Games

U.S. and Japanese sales of Wii players totaled 1.47 million in January and February, said market researchers NPD Group Inc. and Enterbrain. PlayStation 3 tallied 604,331, while stores sold 584,329 of Microsoft Corp.'s Xbox 360 consoles. Wii is also leading in Europe, said London-based researcher Screen Digest.

Wii games, all produced by Kyoto, Japan-based Nintendo, took three of the top 10 sales spots in the U.S. in February, said NPD, based in Port Washington, New York. Not a single U.S. publisher had a Wii game in the top 20 in February.

Nintendo's lead will widen, pressuring companies even more. Researcher IDC predicts Nintendo will ship 16.1 million players this year, outpacing Microsoft's 9.87 million Xbox 360s and Sony's 9.1 million PlayStation 3s. Wii game sales will total $2.2 billion, trailing only Xbox 360, said IDC, based in Framingham, Massachusetts.

Electronic Arts wasn't the only publisher slow to see Wii's appeal. New York-based Take-Two Interactive Software Inc., maker of ``Grand Theft Auto'' games, had no Wii titles when the player was released and now plans to have three this year, said spokesman Jim Ankner.

Activision Inc., based in Santa Monica, California, plans to release six Wii games this year, giving the second-largest publisher a total of 11, said spokeswoman Maryanne Lataif.

Miscalculation

Game companies had expected PlayStation 3 to dominate based on the success of PlayStation 2, said John Taylor, an analyst with Arcadia Investment Corp. in Portland, Oregon. Sony has sold more than 100 million PlayStation 2s since 2001, including 37.7 million in the U.S., making it the top-seller. Nintendo's previous console, GameCube, sold 11.7 million units in the U.S.

Perceptions changed when Nintendo unveiled Wii last May in Los Angeles. Demonstration consoles attracted long lines of developers waiting to swing a virtual tennis racquet.

``People got their hands on that controller and started playing games and said, `This is fun, this is going to do better than we expected,''' Electronic Arts Chief Executive Officer Lawrence Probst said at a Morgan Stanley conference on March 5.

With six months to go before Wii's release and games requiring a year or more to develop, publishers knew they were in trouble.

Redeploying

Electronic Arts bought Bountiful, Utah-based Headgate Studios Inc. in November to bolster Wii development. With ``Godfather Black Hand Edition'' and ``Tiger Woods Golf 07'' in stores, Electronic Arts has six Wii titles and plans to have about a dozen in total this year.

``We came back and redeployed a lot of our resources,'' said Earl, who heads Electronic Arts' Redwood Shores studio.

The results are seen in ``Godfather,'' where players use their hands to shake the wand and an attachment, dubbed a nunchuk, back and forth as if strangling or jostling someone. The wand also can be used to punch or shoot victims.

``You really feel like you grab someone,'' Earl said.

The Wii may prove to be a windfall, since games cost just $2 million to $5 million to create, a fraction of the $20 million to $30 million spent on PlayStation 3 or Xbox 360 titles, analyst Taylor said. In addition, Wii appears to be expanding the market, rather than stealing sales from rivals, he said.

Ubisoft

Ubisoft Entertainment SA, maker of ``Rayman'' and ``Tom Clancy,'' was the quickest to recognize Wii's appeal and is reaping the rewards.

Wii games helped increase sales for the December quarter by 24 percent to $405 million. In January, the company raised its 2007 forecast for revenue growth to 16 percent from 10 percent to 12 percent previously.

Ubisoft, based in the Paris suburb of Montreuil-Sous-Bois, had seven Wii games out by December and plans six more by June, said Tony Key, vice president of marketing.

``It's not really a bet anymore,'' he said. ``It's a viable system that's going to make us money.''
 



Nobody is crazy enough to accuse me of being sane.

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Nice post... Devs are indeed shifting resources to wii!



THE NETHERLANDS

Shame that UbiSoft/EA have pretty much failed the system in terms of innovative gameplay adaptation. Ubisoft has ONE title that can be considered a true Wii game whereas EA has none. Ports/cash ins that involve the controller in some miniscule way does not translate to new gameplay.



Sometimes it hurts to go number 2.

Last time I checked Ubi did a lot of ports but also did both Red Steel and Rayman : Raving Rabbits.

 

And there are QUITE a few people who believe that EA did great jobs with Godfather, Madden 07 and SSX Blur.  They did fail, it seems, with Need For Speed and Medal of Honor : Vanguard (whatayamean I failed?!?!?).  Results seem mixed for Tiger Woods though.  And then there's MySims and Boogie Nights coming out later this year from them. 

 I personally think MySims is going to be a big "non-core" hit, it's a completely new Sims title for the Wii from the ground up, it's got a super-cute style to it, and they won't be stuggling with a gamepad (which previous sims game didn't work too well on). 



Nobody is crazy enough to accuse me of being sane.

vanguardian1 said:

Last time I checked Ubi did a lot of ports but also did both Red Steel and Rayman : Raving Rabbits.

 

And there are QUITE a few people who believe that EA did great jobs with Godfather, Madden 07 and SSX Blur.  They did fail, it seems, with Need For Speed and Medal of Honor : Vanguard (whatayamean I failed?!?!?).  Results seem mixed for Tiger Woods though.  And then there's MySims and Boogie Nights coming out later this year from them. 

 I personally think MySims is going to be a big "non-core" hit, it's a completely new Sims title for the Wii from the ground up, it's got a super-cute style to it, and they won't be stuggling with a gamepad (which previous sims game didn't work too well on). 


EA and Ubisoft are complete multiplatform whores. Ubisoft's lone console exclusive title was Red Steel, and that was terrible. I do give them credit for the multiplatform Raving Rabbids, that is a display that the Wii can be proud of. EA's games on the other hand, offer no resounding evidence that the Wii is necessary for gaming.

And don't get me started on any variation of the Sims. I shelled out too much money for expansions and spinoffs and it bit me in the ass. Expect a half-done cash in with more of the same on the way for twice the price, for that is the EA way.



Sometimes it hurts to go number 2.

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First: intressting articel, thanks for sharing it.

Some things I feel is intressting:

  • Statment of cost: 2-5 million USD against 20 million USD seems a little bit overestimated. At least Red Steel costed somewhere around 10 I think.
  • Intressting that most of the major westen devlopers seems to want to join the Wii bandwagon. EA has its specific Wii studio and everything

Other than that I think Ubi really loves that they were first coming to Wii. Red Steel and Rayman seems to be selling pretty well.

When it comes to new gameplay I would state that:

  • Red Steel is already there, the sword fighting is pretty new stuff not just hit a button.
  • MySims might not be new but will go to the non-core
  • Boogie might be a real hit for the female group, just like singstar, but of course that depends of well EA works on that.

When it comes to MoH: Vanguard, it did play better than the PS2 version according to the text, but it got a worse score because of that the writer thought that they could have done better graphics and CoD3 controlls.



 

 

Buy it and pray to the gods of Sigs: Naznatips!

PinkPoop said:

Shame that UbiSoft/EA have pretty much failed the system in terms of innovative gameplay adaptation. Ubisoft has ONE title that can be considered a true Wii game whereas EA has none. Ports/cash ins that involve the controller in some miniscule way does not translate to new gameplay.


Dude, you obviously haven't played Godfather Wii.

 

I also think that MySims would be EA's highest selling title for the Wii, if not the highest selling exclusive EA game for any console this year. Boogie has potential but I give the edge to MySims, it's just a proven formula that might actually work better on the Wii(pointer controls vs traditional buttons) pcakaged with sugarry cuteness and stuffed with puppies, kittens and rainbows.



If you understand WHAT kind of game Red Steel is, it's a decent quality game that's quite enjoyable.

 

It's essentially like a "B-Class Japanese Gangster" movie.  I'd suggest adjusting the controls to your own style, as a PC gamer I preffered the default-on auto-aim to be turned off.  It took me some time to get the hang of it, but I was able to enjoy it immensely. I found the swordplay quite fun, whenever I could I disarmed the opponents rather than hurt them or kill them, I like to be a nice, HONORABLE guy. ;)  Once I had the time-slow skill unlocked, I disarmed a few gun users during shootouts and convinced them to surrender with proper handgun gestures. ;)



Nobody is crazy enough to accuse me of being sane.

 by the time their stuff comes out, wii will be dieing.   EA could die.... ahh dreams.



Hus said:

 by the time their stuff comes out, wii will be dieing.   EA could die.... ahh dreams.


Why are the waiting five years to bring there stuff out?