There’s a rumour floating around the internet that suggests that EA were desperate for Nintendo to use its Origin system with Wii U. We’ve already heard that Nintendo was consulted by third-party developers to help improve the online experience with Wii U, and EA were apparently one of these developers.

EA became greedy and asked Nintendo to make the Nintendo Network for Wii U officially part of Origin and run Origin’s interface and netcode. Nintendo declined, and according to the source, lost EA’s support for the console. The individual who posted the rumour also stated that Valve are hard at work creating a Left 4 Dead prequel for current generation formats.

Well, this would kind of explain there butth--.... reserved approach in regards to their Wii U support.

The report in question?

Whatever happened to the groundbreaking EA/Nintendo partnership? Take a gander... (self.Games)



While this is marked as a rumor, this was shared because word about his from trusted friends who work at EA. Their names will not be listed so that way they can feed their kids so I ask of you to do the same. This info should go out into the public domain to see if we can get the pure truth from EA even if it's a "no comment".

Ok, remember last year when the President of EA came onto Nintendo's E3 Stage and announced their "very close partnership" with Nintendo like double rainbows just happen and we were going to get a ton of high quality games for Wii U?

What happened to that?

Well supposedly, eight months before E3 and many months after this is what it was like between EA and Nintendo. Nintendo noticed that many people commended EA's online system and netcode they did for their Wii games (Madden, Medal of Honor, ect) so they asked them if they could work on contract to help build the core online ecosystem for their next gen console. EA provide a ton of consoling to Nintendo, such as how to make low-latency net code, username account systems, social networks and more. While other companies did provide input as well, EA made sure to provide the most input and support for the Wii U's R&D.

As an reward, EA received development kits even before Ubisoft, Valve or Tecmo Koei. Many of EA's studios were interested, especially Bioware who have been wanting to put their own games on a Nintendo system for ages and finally had the technical ability to do it with a Mass Effect Trilogy port and Dragon Age 3 on slate for the system.

Here comes the problem. At a meeting in Kyoto, a month or so after Peter Moore visited them, Nintendo of Japan showed EA their new Nintendo Network and Miiverse online system for Wii U. They wanted to congratulate them helping them with the support and paid them for their counseling.

This is where reportedly EA according to my friends who were at the meeting the core executives at EA got greedy. They then offered this deal to Nintendo where EA could go further with the online system adding smartphone/tablet functionality, communities, Facebook and Twitter interactions and more. Better netcode and something that would truly rival X-Box Live and PSN.

The catch? Nintendo would have to make the Nintendo Network for Wii U officially part of Origin and run Origin's interface and netcode. Ergo, Nintendo Network would be an Origin-exclusive network.

Nintendo actually did debate for a minute if they should accept EA's deal, but they quickly decided (and put their foot down) that there was WAY more harm than good doing this. Even though Nintendo Network can link to Origin and it's servers, having the core network running on Origin would provide quality control issues. For example, if EA wanted to sell some low end DLC for $50 each when realistically consumers would buy it only for $5, EA could do this without Nintendo having any say since it was their network and not Nintendo's. Also, if a rival company let's say Activision wanted to put Modern Warfare 4 on Wii U, EA could give Activison the WORST netcode and support resources while putting all their back into Battlefield 4, thus making a rival look worse than EA"s products.

These unfair business possibilities and consumer complaints on Origin for PC made Nintendo reject EA's offering for Origin and instead opted to keep the platform open to it's own internal network and able to link/patch in other networks such as Steam and uPlay.

This, like the PSN vs. Capcom incident that caused MH4 to jump ship, destroyed any momentum that Nintendo had with EA for Wii U. While EA still likes Wii U and will support it, from what I understand unless the launch titles or future titles sell way beyond expectations, EA will simply "throw Wii U bones" by putting some multiplatform games without giving them any real budgets. This means we are going to get low quality in terms of budget and manpower ports of various EA games with no soul behind them and thus the original agreement of ME3, FIFA and Madden are gimped and the developers have only that small budget to work with.

Ironically, the good thing that came out of this is that other 3rd parties praised Nintendo. This especially pleased Ubisoft, who was head over heels with the system to begin with and this move further solidified their partnership with the Big N. In a way, Nintendo lost EA and gained the entire good side of Ubisoft instead.

This also gave props to Valve, who also loves the system and since they are hard at work for 5 games in the next three years next year they will show off games for Wii U, starting with a multiplat Left 4 Dead prequel announcement for Q1/Q2 2013. (rumored)

That is what I was told. Please spread the word.

http://www.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/xnt5r/whatever_happened_to_the_groundbreaking/

Classic Nintendo, and considering the latest performance of EA, they're not exactly someone we should be missing either.

If this is true then EA should be ashamed of themselves

EA's spot in hell is just craving for it to be filled

I don't really put that much stock in this. Some parts of this story may be true, but it sounds like a bunch of conjecture too.

What "great" Ubi Soft support? Zombi U was already in development last year as Killer Freaks, so they just threw in some timed exclusivity for Rayman, which is a low budget game.

This validates everything I was saying in the other threads about EA today. I called it before this is saw light. I mean, heck, EA said it. They will just demo games on the Wii U and if they succeed then they will bring them to smart glass.

I say Nintendo should bar EA from making releases on their system and that people should boycott their products until they demonstrate the product is top quality.

Yes it was, and Rayman is still Rayman, IE awesome!

Look at the launch titles for all the current-gen consoles. There isn't much availible at launch, if Nintendo got great Ubisoft support we will see it further into the WiiU lifespan.

It really wouldn't surprise me if it was true.
EA are the douchebags of the industry. When they negotiated Dreamcast support with Sega, they demanded sports games exclusivity and when they didn't get it, refused to support it.
They reverse engineered the Megadrive and threathened to make unlicensed games unless Sega gave them favourable licensing terms.
This isn't beyond EA.

That's what I am thinking ...

EA may have seen an opportunity to expand its Origin service to the Wii U and offered financial incentives and increased support, and Nintendo probably turned them down because they didn't want to give up control especially to a company with as many consumer relation problems as EA; and steping away meant that any of this extra support would be removed from the console's line-up. 

Ultimately, it is Nintendo not allowing EA to screw over their customers for a minimal increase in over-all third party support; which seems like a reasonable trade-off to me.