EA are not known for exclusives but Grand Slam Tennis for Wii is just that. The title has been made from the ground up exclusively with the Wii in mind. It's been designed around the Wii Remote, the Wii Remote with Wii MotionPlus and also the Nunchuk attachment. It's even coming off the back of a Tennis game that has sold over 40 Million copies world wide in Wii Sport Tennis while completely destroying everything that held Wii Sports Tennis back. 1:1 over shots? Check. Ability to move your character around the court? Check. Ability to play singles and not just doubles? Check. Ability to choose from a huge roster of past and present players? Check. Ability to play on different tournaments and different surfaces from around the world? Check. Ability to play in a fully fledged online system? Check. Hey what about dynamic features like player stats and even fatigue? Oh yeah Grand Slam Tennis has that too.
Grand Slam Tennis seems to be the definitive tennis title. In PAL regions it'll even come bundled with the latest hardware device from Nintendo to fully create the feeling of being out on the court. So why are we even having this discussion? It's obvious that tennis really doesn't belong on any other platform when compared to this title so why would EA want to give us a multiplatform title next year? Would they even want to release this game next year?
Looking at their EA Sports label, the answer to the last question is absolutely. Madden, FIFA, NHL, Tiger Woods PGA Tour among many many others.. EA are about franchises and tennis is one title that they haven't delved into just yet. The argument you may present is, why then is Grand Slam Tennis only on Wii when all other EA titles are multiplatform games?
The main reason they chose Wii is because it's such a good fit. When looking at sales of Wii, an early driver of those sales was Wii Sports which is most widely known for it's tennis game. It just works so well. Couple that with the release of Wii MotionPlus and EA are surely onto a winner. It's obvious that multiplatform future or not, Wii is the best place to solidify the title as a franchise that people will come to again and again. Similar is the Tiger Woods franchise that will come bundled with Wii MotionPlus worldwide. Wii is Tiger Woods PGA Tour 10's lead platform and includes extra modes such as disk golf that the other versions lack. Why then would they want to give other platforms the game?
EA have spent who-knows-how-much on licencing costs to include all the big names from the present and the past. They've also got the rights for the first time in a video game for the Grand Slam, all four major tournaments for the year including the Australian, French, US Opens and of course Wimbledon. EA are going to want to make as much money off of that investment as possible of course but the game has only one platform release.
However EA stated that beginning this year, Wii would get half of their focus and the other half would go to PS3/360. EA have been leaking money for a while now due to many reasons one of which they have admitted to being that they simply bet on the wrong horse. That horse was the HD consoles and now they are changing their focus. In the end it'll come down to sales. The PS3 and 360 versions would be very similar to Virtua Tennis and would lack a lot of the things that make Grand Slam Tennis a cut above all other tennis games created so far. However if they don't make as much money as they hoped on the Wii version but enough to show franchise potential then perhaps they'll branch out to the other consoles.
It'll be interesting to see how things unfold but one thing's for sure, If you're an EA sports fan, Wii is looking like the platform to own.
