It's not that nobody on Nintendo-systems buys EAs offerings. Even with older versions of FIFA relabeled as newer one people bought FIFA on Wii. But it is an extra effort for EA to port the games. Also it does split interests, if people buy Nintendo-games, they probably have lesser money for other games. And if people buy Nintendo-consoles, they may lack the money for Sony- or MS-consoles, although these people might buy EA-games. So yes, destroying the competition helps EA.

Believe it or not these titles missing from the consoles library are going to be more ruinous then most on these forums are liable to admit. Nintendo didn't make a point of saying they were going to aggressively court third party developers, because they could do just as well without them. With the casual focus of the Wii, and the very real reluctance to evolve their own software. Nintendo shed a lot of the die hard core audience that ensured that they could make a solo go of any generation.

Without a certain level of third party support Nintendo isn't likely to bring many of these lapsed loyalists back into the fold, because during their hiatus usually to other platforms. They have probably evolved as gamers, and truly expect, and demand a far more varied offering then what Nintendo itself can provide. This wouldn't necessarily be a death knell for Nintendo. Except for one other thing.

When Nintendo was making mountains of cash off of the Wii. They didn't take advantage of that to expand their studios, and to diversify their offerings. They of coarse can make a go of that now, but they would be starting from scratch, and they will not be able to generate a great deal of momentum from that. Not that they are even remotely likely to consider such a thing. Nintendo isn't so much conservative as it is insular, and in a real sense that is perhaps the biggest reason that they are shedding third party support right now.

They haven't gotten to know them, and they haven't addressed their needs. What they needed from Nintendo was a partner that would make a platform that was a healthy ecosystem. That could support a wide variety of games with Nintendo leading the way by encouraging their fans to play a wider variety of things. By making those things themselves. They didn't do that, and they did what they always do. They continued to do their own thing, and asked third parties to do the wet work for them.

Which is actually compounded by the fact that Nintendo actively thwart third parties efforts. They continually skew the demographic of their platform to their favor, and they actively design their platform to service their own purposes. Developers didn't need or want a touch screen. Especially one that wasn't capacitive. That was all about what Nintendo wanted for its games. Look any console has to service two audiences, and not just the one being the fans. They have to give developers what they want so they can make the games that they want to make. I am not saying there isn't room for compromise, but Nintendo isn't doing that.

I can understand why Electronic Arts would want to wash their hands of the platform. It is fundamentally so much easier to support two consoles especially when the third console manufacturer is basically contrary by its very nature. Yes it could do serious damage to the console ambitions of Nintendo, but frankly that may a really good thing. They are far too complacent about their fans, and they haven't done enough to keep them loyal. At some point along the way Nintendo stopped being about outdoing themselves, and became more about dialing in yet another carbon copy of the previous generations game.

On and by the way isn't Electronic Arts turning on Sega exactly the reason that Sega isn't a console manufacturer anymore. I seem to recall something about them withdrawing support for the Dreamcast. Ah here we go enjoy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Dreamcast#Developer_Support

Developer Support

Electronic Arts was one of the notable developers that did not publish games for the Dreamcast. Although EA had long supported Sega's earlier consoles, and this partnership has been attributed to EA's emergence as one of the dominant players, it had suffered losses from the Sega Saturn and its premature discontinuation.

During negotiations, EA was irked by Sega's indecision over hardware, including which graphics chipset and whether to include a modem. One EA executive said "there was a push from Sega, which was having cash flow problems, and they couldn't afford to give us [EA] the same kind of license that EA has had over the last five years. So EA basically said, 'You can't succeed without us.' And Sega said, 'Sure we can. We're Sega.'^[2]

There was disagreement between Sega and EA over sports games. EA knew that hardware manufacturers were at risk when launching a new console, and would use such situations to EA's advantage. EA's then-president Larry Probst (a close friend of Sega's Stolar) noted wide competition to EA's sports franchises and wanted five year exclusive rights for EA to be the only sports brand on Dreamcast. However Sega America's president Bernie Stolar had a strategic plan that included Visual Concepts (a company that Sega purchased for $10 million) as a key element for the Dreamcast,^[10] and Stolar believed that Visual Concept's upcoming NFL title would be superior to EA's Madden NFL series. Sega offered to lower the royalty rates that EA would pay for publishing its titles on the Dreamcast but Probst would not budge on the exclusivity deal.^[2]

I really don't care for Dead Space, Mass Effect or Battlefield (thinking that DICE made the best flipper-simulations before EA bought them ...). Dragon Age is somewhat interesting, but I feel it gone too far from the Baldur's Gate recipe. It's a pity, that Black Isle is no more.

So, don't get me wrong. I don't boycott EA or anything. It's simply their offerings have nothing for me. If they release a game I'm interested in, I would certainly buy it. But it doesn't look, as if EA wants to develop in that direction.

People still play sports videogames? That's kinda sad. Football games havent been good since Tecmo Bowl, and golf is boring unless yiou're playing it - for real, and even then, its only somewhat fun. Give me more zombie games. Oh wait, EA doesn't actually produce anything I'd play.

I agree mostly with what you said. Nintendo should have broadened their studios. but not to pave the way for third-parties, but to be more independent of them. Sony never paved the way for 3rd-parties with PS1 and PS2. They strongly worked towards some serious 1st-party offerings, but as they were new to the market they lacked diversity in games. That was no problem for the 3rd-parties back then.

And reading the stuff about Sega and EA - EA really wanted an exclusive deal for sports offerings? In Segas place I would have answered: only if you exclusively release for Sega-systems. LOL. Every console-maker has to turn down such an offer. That would be disastrous for the platform and would lead to even more dependance on EA, while EA can be independent through releasing on other platforms.

Yeah, well, I really like the games EA makes. Dead Space, Mass Effect, Dragon Age, Crysis, Battlefield, FIFA, Need For Speed are all franchises I'm interested in, so I guess I won't join your notion of boycotting them. All I want from them is to finally release proper trilogy packages for these series that would contain all games and DLCs. Just to give us a full package for the end of the generation.

Lol. I will laugh my ass off when EA goes bankrupt.

@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.

I'll be getting Crysis 3 next week....so...sorry...

They did the same thing with Sega actually.  Tiger Woods with the Wiimote and also the screen would of been cool, so you could actually see where the ball lay.  Oh well....