Wii and Wii U Account for About 1% of EA's $273M Loss for the Quarter

Only $9 million of the netted $695 million came from Wii and Wii U software.

While EA reassured Nintendo console owners a couple months back that it is still developing games on Wii U, these results are unsurprising to say the least, as, while perhaps for EA's sake, they did not support Nintendo's platforms as well as they did the others, with unfortunate events, such as Mass Effect 3 Special Edition being almost deliberately sabotaged by the soon after release of the Mass Effect Trilogy for every other current generation platform besides the Wii U, taking place. The trend didn't come to any type of close, with a ready-to-be-published Crysis 3 for Wii U being canned, Madden NFL 2014 skipping Wii U, FIFA 14, while making it on the Wii and 3DS, ultimately skipping the Wii U, and, more recently, the discovery of a canned Wii U exclusive modeled after TIE Fighter and X-Wing titled Wingman.

[showtimefolks]

right now there is no reason to support wiiu as a publisher, nintendo how could you screw up this big coming off the success of wii?

[Eonjay]

I agree. Publisher follow the money.

[deadfrag]

Indeed!But if publishers dont release games on the system its obvious that they will not see any income from it;this not mentioning that for the Wii U some developers have the nerve to release half ported games or incomplete ones.They must think Wii u owners are stupid but they are not if the game is cut they dont support it is has simple has that!

[Eonjay]

If you remember not to long ago, Ubisoft release a game exclusively on Wii U. They made no money. People remember this. They are going to be naturally apprehensive about supporting the Wii U until it gets its sales up.

@deadfrag

I totally agree with what you said. But its a cycle. If people don't buy the games, publisher aren't going to support it. If publisher don't support it (properly) people don't buy the games. If people don't buy the games....

[showtimefolks]

deadfrag

UBI released an exclusive and UBI is one of the big supporters of big N, also in japan sega release yakuza and it did nothing sales wise

you can not expect publisher to waste resources when the retunr could be nothing, also remember this. Nintendo home consoles have decades of history supporting the fact their consoles don't sell 3rd party games. People buy nintendo home consoles to play 1st party exclusives and other consoles to play 3rd party games

you can not release a console that's only as strong as current gen and expect to compete

[Concertoine]

ZombiU sold 600,000 copies. Thats decent for a launch game, and it appears to have a lasting shelf life too. The game has poor graphics, no online features at all, its about 10 hours long and that's all there is. Where this massive budget went i have no idea, all i know is a lot of wii u owners bought that game.
But HOW DO YOU KNOW the returns will be nothing when your judgement is based on late ports even if good (NFS:MS, mass effect 3, batman arkham city) or the game is a bad port entirely (splinter cell blacklist) or lacks content (BO2, AC 3, COD ghosts, SE:V2, arkham origins).
Also the wii was comparable to the original xbox and is still the best seller last gen. The wii u is at least significantly more powerful than last gen on top of it's features. Considering next gen hasnt even started, the wii u's power is irrelevant, as of now its the most powerful system on the market by a respectable margin.

[Misaka_x_Touma]

Uh this is EA
since when has EA been successful on Nintendo platform
n64 nope, gc nope and wii nope
Handhelds nope

so what do you expect

[AbortMission]

#DamageControl

Lol

[lilbroRx]

EA had 15 million+ sellers on the Wii.

Their failure on the Wii U was their fault as the article states.

[Misaka_x_Touma]

EA does not have any 15m plus seller. Only third party publisher who made a lot of money off wii were Sega, Capcom and Ubisoft. Activision and Disney may have as well.

[Neonridr]

@Misaka - he said they have 15 games that have sold over 1 million units.

[lilbroRx]

Can you read?

"15" "million+" "sellers." That means they had 15 games on the Wii that sold over a million copies.

Activision and Ubisoft also had a lot of million sellers on the Wii.

This is all on top of the fact that the dev cost for Wii U was around 1/3 that of PS3/360 games on average so the profit margins were much higher as well.

[DeadlyFire]

Nintendo did one thing wrong. They completely ignored graphics standards that have been evolving. Sony is the only one really that pushed for 1080p 60 fps as a new standard and it could payoff for them seeing how multiplatform games already have less resolution on X1 and its not even past year 1. Although I expect they could learn new tricks to enhance visuals and keep the resolution going forward.

Sony was thinking 1080p 30-60 fps the whole time.
Microsoft was thinking 720p 60 fps/1080p 30 fps as their main focus. 1080p 60 fps is marginal, but possible.
Nintendo was thinking its more than PS3/X360 can do.

EA could make gold on the WiiU really if they wanted to do so. Sure they would have to tone down the graphics a bit for some things, but it could work out if they really tried.

[bitboi]

it's the console cycle repeating it's self. No one stays on top forever...

[Misaka_x_Touma]

and no one wins by launch factor

[AKR]

EA dropped support for Wii eons ago and they've only released one game for the Wii U for the entire year and that was Need for Speed Most Wanted U. Best port the system has gotten yet (and one of the most well-made ports ever) - but it came a whole SIX MONTHS behind the other versions - other FOUR versions to be exact.

What does EA expect if they release half-baked/late ports and drop support? I don't feel bad for them. Yes, the system has struggled, but I don't condone laziness and backstabbing.

All throughout the year they've been coming up with baseless, asinine lies - all to try and justify their absence on Nintendo systems - especially Wii U. For a company what just two years ago came up on Nintendo's E3 stage and declared an "unprecedented partnership" - they sure have changed their tone.

[lilbroRx]

No, NFS Most Wanted U is not the best port on the Wii U by any means. It was late, overpriced and had gimped online.

The best ports on the Wii U are Trine 2 and Rayman Legends.

[ziratul]

NFS Most Wanted U was great, better than XBOX 360 and PS3? Gimped Online? Who played NFS online anyway....

[inStereo]

AKR is correct - the WiiU version of NFS was the best out of the consoles - among other improvements over the others, it used the PC-version texture-packs, which were much more detailed than either the XBOX360 or PS3 versions.

[Gr81]

Actually shows that EA is losing money without Nintendo's help lol. This gen will be ugly.

[mistertwoturbo]

This is the unfortunate result of the mixed marketing of the Wii-U. There are people that still think it's an add-on to the Wii.

I don't understand how Nintendo didn't have their biggest games ready from the get go.

This is sad because I'm a Nintendo Kid. But I've lost any interest in their consoles since the Wii. It has been sitting under the TV collecting dust for the past 4 years. And I was interested in the Wii-U but there simply isn't anything I want to play on it.

[lilbroRx]

EA released next to nothing on the Wii U. That means more most of these losses are from failures in software on the 360/PS3.

[mistertwoturbo]

I think you misread the headline. It's about the wii and wii u combined only made $9m of revenue for EA out of $693m. That's bad because they could stop supporting those consoles and it wouldn't make much of a difference to their overall revenue.

[lilbroRx]

I read the article. It points out that EA has only release one title on the Wii U this year and that EA mostly sabotaged this their games on the Wii U.

its point out that EA's sales on the Nintendo hardware are low do to their mistreatment of Nintendo customers and that Nintendo accounts for little of their losses since they didn't release anything.

You neglect to include that fact that EA is the cause of them making so little on the Wii U.

[mistertwoturbo]

Sorry I agree that EA is part of the problem. It's really a hard situation, the console won't sell if there isn't enough support, but won't have enough support if it doesn't sell enough hardware. It's stuck between a rock and a hard place.

I actually wanted to buy one, but my budget is limited this holiday and there really isn't anything I'm dying to play on it.

[SpiralTear]

I initially read the N4G submission headline and thought that the Wii/Wii U sales were 1% of the LOSS, not profit. Though the actual article's headline is okay, the N4G headline is confusing.

Either way, Nintendo needs to up the value of the Wii U by increasing its library size and bringing great exclusive titles. Also, EA needs to quit shirking the Wii U and actually release real games instead of delayed and neutered ports.

Neither side is innocent here.

[truechainz]

So EA stops making wii u games because the console isn't selling. Then they record a bigger loss this quarter while the Wii U records a slight growth in sales (though still pretty low). This is indeed ironic.

[Shok]

Why does nobody here realize that EA didn't even release any games last quarter on Wii or Wii U lol?

[mistertwoturbo]

Umm sure they did, $9m worth.

[Ol_G]

It's psn4g.com wat did you think logical thinking doesn't apply here

[t3gamenews]

ea has no business complaining about their sells on Wii & WiiU & comparing them to ps3 & 360.
looks at what their releasing on ps3 &360: crysis (1, 2, 3), battlefield (3,4), mass effect (1 ,2, 3) with all dlc, multiple need for speed games, mirrors edge, titan fall, dead space, sport games that aren't nerfd....

while WiiU just gets 1 old need for speed(most wanted) game full price with no dlc, mass effect 3 game at full price with some dlc... "then release mass effect trilogy & exclusive dlc for other consoles?"

EA your games dont need a to sell on a console you dont support.

[Chrischi1988]

Again, EAs own fault. give me one Wii U game, which was not somehow sabotaged by EA.

I mean really now. Fifa 13 was more like a Fifa 12,5. Mass Effect 3, released at full price, but release on the other consoles, with a much bigger install base, the Trilogy for the same price? Like thats not a total rip off, I mean, like EA didnt know themselves, that such things wont sell. Lets see, take Need for Speed Most Wanted... a game series, which for years now, gets a new sequel in a yearly basis and they release it on Wii U about half a year later, than on other consoles, it should have been a launch title, then it wouldve been ok, but this, just 6 month away from the sequel, they release it on Wii U, with slightly better graphics (granted), but everyone, who was willing to play that game, could do so for more than a half year on Xbox360 or PS3 and by the time of its release, they wanted for the Wii U version $70, but for the Xbox 360 version just around $25. Like noone who has a Wii U owns a PS3 or Xbox360... They shouldve skipped Most Wanted and bring Rivals right on time with the other consoles.

You cannot expect things to sell, if they are a total rip-off from the very beginning. But then complain about bad sales. I dont think, if a game like Battlefield 4 came to Wii U, that it wouldnt sell around the same % of its installbase, then on other consoles, if it came on time. I can see it, really, after this holiday, Wii U has a good momentum, then EA backpedals, brings Battlefield 4 about 8 month late to the console and then they complain it doesnt sell well, even though their is a install base by then and then they will just say, that on Nintendo Systems are no fans of their franchises.

I get, that the low install base is also fault on this dilemma, but the thing is, the way EA did their thing on Wii U, even if it had a good install base, it wouldnt change the fact of bad sales of EA games, because of their rip-off policy.

Buhhh EA, buhhh!!!