EA: Wii U blew us away, great horsepower and innovation, important to get there day one, more
Isn’t it refreshing to hear positive comments from third-parties about Wii U? EA in particular has been very supportive of the console, even showing up at Nintendo’s E3 2011 briefing to discuss the possibilities of producing Battlefield and other titles for the console. EA’s Frank Gibeau was once again asked about Wii U and you can hear about what he told GamesIndustry below.
Q: John Riccitiello was on stage at Nintendo’s E3 conference earlier this month, the first time he’s been on stage with the company before. EA is obviously betting big on the Wii U.
Frank Gibeau: We were really blown away by the unique innovation that Nintendo brings with the Wii U controller on a high performance machine. The ability to do HD graphics and access game experiences in a completely novel way and a way that’s never been seen before, it really struck our fancy. We were excited by what Nintendo presented to us, we thought about it and it fits well with what we’re trying to do with our franchises like FIFA and Madden and Battlefield. There’s great horsepower there, great innovation and Nintendo’s got fantastic branding. We’re platform agnostic as a company so if we find something we believe will have success commercially and critically, and has a business model that works for us, we’re in.
Q: How long have you been working with Nintendo behind the scenes on that?
Frank Gibeau: We’ve had it for a little while, I can’t really go into the details of it. We’ve had machines and we’ve been working on games. At the E3 press conference what was really important for us was to establish the relationship and talk about a few things, what we’re thinking about and excited about, and we’ll show games when they’re looking ready, when they’re looking tight.
Q: It’s still important for EA to get in there and grab the first mover advantage on new hardware?
Frank Gibeau: Absolutely. It served us well on PlayStation 2 and PlayStation 3. Getting in early is partly about being a successful transition company and figuring out where the hardware is going to go. With the Wii U it’s important for us to get there on day one so we can get in and build as big an audience as possible.
Q: The risk is that if it’s doesn’t have the impact you’d expect, it’s a big gamble…
Frank Gibeau: We’ve been doing this for 25 years and trying to pick platforms and more often than not we get it right. I hope we have this one right. That’s the gamble.
