EA continues to defecate on Nintendo

[Mnementh]

Dodece said:

@Mnementh

Sony actually had a substantial technological advantage over Nintendo that made greater third party support almost a foregone conclusion, and that was their format for their platform cost all of a dollar to manufacture, and Sony even offered buy back on unsold copies. Whereas Nintendo used a format that cost between ten to fifteen dollars that Nintendo could never afford to run a buy back scheme for. Basically Sony did through technological innovation the same thing I am saying Nintendo ought to have done with software diversification. They made their platform a more profitable place to do business. With low risks, high rewards, and low overhead costs.

As for Electronic Arts they had something of a point. Sega had a really bad habit of abandoning platforms just as they had gotten developers to sink serious cash into games for them, and then Sega had the audacity to go after their market share after they had so royally fucked them over. In the end through either guile or incompetence Sega had made itself into a intolerable threat to Electronic Arts. It would be one thing if it had seemed like a fair competition, but from Electronic Arts position it had to have seemed underhanded and malicious.

You have to remember that back then Electronic Arts may have been big for the time, but it did not have the kind of cash reserves that it has today. Those abandoned platforms did a lot of damage to them, and Sega basically saying, and oh we are going after you too. It had to look like a textbook setup to them. So they stood their ground. Sega didn't flinch, and Sega learned that friendships don't last forever.

In the end it might not have mattered anyway, because if developers were burned by all that platform jumping so too were gamers. I knew a few Sega gamers that didn't buy a Dreamcast, because they were sure that Sega would launch a new console a couple years later.

Yes, you're are right, the N64-cartridge was a problem for 3rd-parties and Sony had an advantage there. But I understood your previous comment like Nintendo should have released games for all genres to show 3rd-parties how it is done. That's something Sony never did.

Well, and abandoning platforms is especially not bad for EA with the release of yearly franchises. I don't know how bold Sega was going after the marketshares, but it could also be a necessity, after missing 3rd-party efforts to fill the voids for the people that owned the systems. And I agree, that EAs decision to avoid Sega were a problem, but not the deciding thing for the Dreamcast to go south.