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Riccitiello on the Big Three’s Strengths and Weaknesses
Speaking to VentureBeat about his desire to drive EA towards platform neutrality, company CEO John Riccitiello has delivered his verdict on some of the strengths and weaknesses of the three current-gen home consoles.
“There are three strong players in the sector. They have all got their respective demographics and geographies,” he said. “Blu-ray on the PS trumps DVD on the Xbox 360. Xbox Live trumps the PlayStation Network. The wand controller trumps the traditional controller.
“They’ve all got their rock, paper, scissors competition going. The $249 Wii price trumps $349 Xbox 360 price. We are playing all three.”
Riccitiello said that it was his job to “make sure we’re neutral”, the company’s product lineup having been more heavily titled towards PS3 and Xbox 360 prior to this year.
“We’ve got great content on the Wii and we want it to be the equal of the Xbox 360 and the PS3. We’re maybe 50 percent to 75 percent of the way there this year with franchises like MySims, BoomBlox, All Play Sports, the Hasbro titles.”
I'm a bit concerned about what assumptions are being made about the Wii's success by the presidents and C-level businessmen in the large leading game companies. The Wii has a great controller for non-traditional gameplay; and it does a fair job of doing what it was intended to do.
Imagine how successful the Wii could have been if they would have included an analog stick on both the nunchuck and the Wiimote. You would then have a controller that catered to both the hardcore and the casual crowd. Instead developers are left trying to figure out how to simulate another analog stick by using the imprecise pointing and/or tilt/roll of the wiimote.
I have all three current-gen systems and I have to say that I am usually put-off by motion controls in any game that I want to sit down and stay with for a long period of time. So, I usually end up playing my 360 or non-motion PS3 games when I'm really in the mood to play a game for a while. And when I'm tired (after work) or sick; the last thing I want to be doing is moving my hands around for hours on end.
Don't be mistaken, the success of the Wii is with the 15 minute gamer. Those consumers are not the type to purchase often, nor are they going to be willing to spend much money on those subsequent purchases. Nintendo has a larger target with more people shooting at it; but those people only have a couple darts at best.
I think most people have made that split. The PS3 and the 360 are in more direct competition with each other, a lot of 3rd party software is avaialble for those two but not for the wii as it isn't powerful enough... where as some games on the wii can't transfer onto the consoles with out the wii mote.
There is quite an obvious line there for a 3rd party dev
I'm not really sure whether you can say that the wand controller trumps the traditional controller . Sure, it makes some games more accessible and can provide an extra level of immersion if used correctly and in the right context, but traditional controllers are still better for a lot of things.
It's difficult to tell what Riccitiello is trying to say here other than: 'We'll be developing for all three consoles', which is hardly news. The only interesting bit seems to be his idea of the split between 360/PS3 and the Wii: is he lumping the MS and Sony consoles together there? I guess the Wii's easier and cheaper to develop for, and the audience are more likely to buy those mini-game compendiums which seem to be springing up all over the place.