Wait, wait, wait.  I learned in the Secret Developer thread that we should NEVER believe anonymous sources and that we should ONLY believe sources if they're willing to put thier name to it.  Now people are saying that the anonymous EA sources are truth.

This is making my head hurt.

It's almost as if people are being selective about which anonymous sources they consider valid based purely upon pre-conceived positions.  

Nah, I'm probably just imagining things.

Neogaf at the helm!

EA burning their bridges with Nintendo is idiotic for a few reasons.

1. At some point moving forward EA is going to want to start making more games for a younger audience again. Battlefield 4 has not even come close to expectations. Dead Space 3 only managed to move 1.65 million across 3 platforms. Dragon Age 2 did not even reach half of the Dragon Age Origins sales. Medal of Honor Warfighter bombed. Need for Speed sales have been a mixed bag. FIFA and Madden are their only two consistent franchises, because they can be played by gamers of all ages, and have mass appeal for obvious reasons. Kid's 3rd Party titles such as Sega All-Stars Transformed, Lego Marvel, and Rayman Legends, sold just as good on Wii U as they did on 360/PS3 with a much small install base. This pretty much leads to my next point.

2. Star Wars. If EA is dumb enough to not make Star Wars games for the Wii U and 3DS, then they are pretty much just throwing money out the window. Star Wars games total on the N64 sold 8.2 million, Gamecube sold 6 million, and the Wii 11.74 million, which just happens to be more then Star Wars games sold on both the 360 and PS3. The cost of porting a game to Wii U is about 1.2 - 2 million dollars (according to Ubisoft), and an extra 750,000 copies minimum of each Star Wars game on the Wii U would net EA no less then 45 million dollars in added Revenue. Just remember this. Star Wars : The Lightsaber Duels on Wii was able to outsold Star Wars Kinect, when Star Wars Kinect was bundled, and pushed as a big title.

3. Everyone with a brain knows that Nintendo is going to move a ton of Wii U's this year. If they can move 5.5 million off of NSMBU (4th in 5 years), Pikmin (Niche title), Wonderful 101 (SUPER-Niche title), Wind Waker HD (Remakes only do 30 percent of their originals), and SM3DW (Semi-Sequel built off of SM3DL), then they could easily move 8 - 10 million consoles this year alone just on DK,Mario Kart, and Smash Bros, especially if they make some bundles and lower the price to $250. That's a very large market for EA to just pass on.

Nintendo has never given them special treatment the way that Microsoft and expecially Sony have.    When a 3rd Party company makes the game (FIFA) that has carried your console sales for half a decade across an entire continent (Europe), you have no choice but to kiss their @ss.   On top of that EA's games sold horribly on the Wii, while Ubisoft made big money, and Activision did pretty well.   Theres a reason why Ubisoft and Activision keep putting all of their games on Wii U, and EA has abandoned it. 

With the exception of your too optimistic number (I say 6 - 8 million consoles), I totally agree with your points. I will also add that creating ports of FIFA and Madden with the engines already on place (version 13 available for the console), could be very cheap and they would had not "burn the bridges".

EA is nobody's friend.

yeah great partners like...3DS FIFA14 not having online mode when PES2011 had it a launch....

Sure. Too bad I won't be able to enjoy the next ME on my Wii U.