With more than 56 million units sold worldwide and all the incredible success Nintendo has had with the Wii, the platform still poses a bit of a conundrum for the industry as a whole. Third parties can't ignore its massive installed base, but at the same time, it's clearly Nintendo that dominates the software charts. Companies that have invested heavily in the Wii, like EA and Ubisoft, have both talked about Wii weakness bringing down their earnings of late. Meanwhile analysts and developers are talking about the Wii bubble possibly deflating now, as substandard software floods the platform. 

It's absolutely mind boggling that three years into the lifecycle of the Wii publishers still are seemingly in experimentation mode; they just can't figure it out. IndustryGamers had a chance to speak with EA CEO John Riccitiello on the phone today, and since he complained of Wii weakness just a few weeks ago, we decided to pick his brain on the subject.

Riccitiello began by clarifying his position on the Wii. Ultimately, he's still happy with his company's success on the platform. “I'm not as negative on it [as you might think], but I tend to be a little less sugar coated in our earnings calls, so if you stack up my language against some of our competitors' CEOs it can come across that way because I did tell people that the Wii business was coming in below expectations. But let's be realistic about what really happened for EA on Wii this year. Our year-to-date Wii revenues have doubled versus last year; we have a 19% share. I don't think any third party publisher has a share higher than that on any platform... I'd have to double check that; we're in the 20s on 360/PS3 and Activision may be up there on one of those platforms. But Wii is a very successful third-party platform for EA," he said.

He then defended EA's own Wii failures, noting that publishers (EA included) are still figuring the system out. "I think it's also fair to say that people are still grappling with it. I think Dead Space Extraction was one of the best pieces of software built on the platform and it did not perform well. It's a strong IP but for some reason it did not resonate in a way that brought consumers to the store to buy it. And Madden hasn't performed to my expectations so far this year, even though it's a fabulous piece of software. EA Sports Active and our Hasbro stuff have done really, really well. So you start to create a certain perception in your mind of the type of consumer that works on the Wii, that's a little different, doesn't have the core gamer in mind, etc. But there are an awful lot of core gamers that have this platform and there are oftentimes some surprising breakthroughs that feel pretty core."

He added, "I think the Wii is confounding to people because it's so darn big and successful. Even this year, what most people perceive as a down year, they're going to sell just in the Western markets somewhere in the mid-teens of millions of hardware units, which is a blow-away success for a console. And yet it's lower than they (and we) originally thought. But that's a little bit like saying they won the Super Bowl by a smaller point spread."  

The bottom line would appear to be that catering to and marketing to that Wii audience is going to remain a challenge for publishers. As Riccitiello points out, this has always been somewhat true for Nintendo consoles, but we think the problem has been exacerbated on the Wii.

Riccitiello continued, "Did I think Dead Space and Madden were going to succeed on the platform? Yes, and I believe to this day that anyone who picks up those products will have a good entertainment experience that's worth more than we charge for. They look great, they play great, and are every bit what a hit should be and they didn't resonate. And I'm very proud of the teams that built them. So I think we have continued learning to do with the way people interact with that piece of hardware, and how you market to that consumer. I think, in general, publishers have had trouble finding sustained success and consistent understanding of what makes a success on Nintendo platforms historically because they're so oriented towards first-party content like Mario and Zelda. So I think the Wii is going to be an evolving picture [for third parties]."