pokoko said: I keep reading that EA is angry at Nintendo because they changed their minds about allowing Origin on the Wii U. Someone have anything close to proof of that? |
Does everyone forget E3 2011? John Ricitiello himself went on-stage at Nintendo's press conference, and announced that, with the Wii U, EA and Nintendo would be enjoying an "unprecedented partnership," implying a more intimate 3rd party/manufacturer relationship than has ever existed.
E3 2012: No EA on stage. Gimped Madden, gimped Mass Effect 3, promised Battlefield 3 port is gone.
In between is????
Now we have the "Origin" theory. While assuming that there is no "evidence" for any sort of large scale breakup, we have what Ricitiello talked up at E3 2011 to go by. Namely, he seemed to indicate that the great thing about Wii U was how Nintendo would allow third parties to use their own online networks in lieu of a centralized Nintendo experience. It's possible that EA pushed ahead from there, asking for Origin to be the very framework upon which the Wii U online experience was founded, a seeming win-win for EA and Nintendo: EA's struggling Steam alternative would be foisted upon an entire userbase (depending on how successful Wii U became, 40 to 80 million new users), while the online-noob Nintendo would get a mature network. The losers in this scenario being Activision (imagine, Call of Duty forced to run through Origin for Wii U players) and every other third party. Knowing that it would be bad for consumers and bad for other 3rd parties, Nintendo pulls back. So EA gets butthurt, cancels any Wii U project they can, and sends all other Wii U projects out to die (Mass Effect, NFS Most Wanted, Madden, FIFA)
And those familiar with EA's history know that butthurt and petty, spiteful revenge are not beyond EA. EA tried to threaten Sega to not make the 2K Sports series on Dreamcast, and when Sega proceeded to do so, EA refused to publish any games for Dreamcast period. EA *thinks* that their petulance had a role in bringing down the Dreamcast, and they think they're important enough to bring down the Wii U and Nintendo along with it.