What does John Riccitiello's resignation mean for Nintendo?

With a new leader at the helm, we could see the tides turn toward working with Nintendo instead of against it. Leadership at EA realizes the direction the company took with many of its products is wrong, so efforts will be made to get the company back on track. This means patching up SimCity so gamers are satisfied, releasing less half-finished content like Dead Space 3 and Dragon Age II, and ideally, focusing on bringing games to a the hungry audience that is Wii U owners.

[R_aVe_N]

I highly doubt you will see many games on the Wii U from EA for now. The user base right now is real iffy.

[guitarded77]

You could tell Nintendo and EA had/have a very bad relationship. Install base will determine if the relationship improves.

[HebrewHammer]

Never count a player out! I remember back in 2006 and 2007 when we PlayStation fans had to put up with all that anti-Sony, tomato throwing crap. But look at us now. Turns out we've got a faster selling device than Xbox, which is pretty substantial given it's year of a head start.

Then again, the WiiU is in a vastly different situation today...

[Jek_Porkins]

That is a bit redundant don't you think? I mean developers support new consoles all the time, EA just thinks Nintendo fans wont buy third party games, which isn't the case.

Nintendo fans just don't buy BAD third party games, which does mean a lot of EA's offerings aren't going to be bought by Nintendo fans.

EA pulled the same crap with Sony and with Sega and the Dreamcast before that. I don't think it'd be hard or risky for them to slap a port out the door for the Wii U. Hopefully whoever takes over see the Wii U as a viable option and decides to work with Nintendo a bit more.

I think Sim City on Wii U would have made total sense.

[R_aVe_N]

Nintendo fans hardly ever buy anything but Nintendo made products at least on consoles. It is a different case with handhelds. Wii U is not a viable option for anybody but Nintendo right now because they are the only ones that are going to make any money off of it. Slapping a port over with such a small user base does not work. Not to mention you have to add extra feature for the Wii U game pad which at this time is not worth the extra effort due to user base (as of now).

[Baka-akaB]

Nintendo only fans dont buy better third party games than their counterparts .

They can fail on it as easily than on other consoles , just like they can succeed . The rest is a matter of goodwill obviously from publishers and user base focus .

Some people , like myself , only buy a nintendo consoles for a set of exclusives and first party nintendo games . That's how some of us behaved for at least 3 generations of Nintendo home consoles , even when given a few stellar exclusives .

[shutUpAndTakeMyMoney]

"What does John Riccitiello's resignation mean for Nintendo?"

More ram?

[fossilfern]

Nothing. Regardless how terrible EA are Riccitiello at least tried getting some new IPs out the door like Dragon Age, Dead Space and Mirrors edge but he has to answer to investors and try and meet their demands/wishes.

Whoever they get in next will just be the same, its the share holders who need to be changed.

[CouldHaveYelledUiiW]

So True,

So many people forget about the shareholders power.

A well deserved "Well Said"

[ogwilson]

Hopefully EA stops acting like arses and end the personal grudge over Nintendo. It's stupid that they pulled support for wii u just because nintendo didn't want origin. They need to realize that their huge status as a publisher does not mean other companies will submit to their every wish.

[Ulf]

Riccitiello was trying to make up for his erroneous support of the Wii lately, by basically stating "we're not going there again" with the Wii U. The other casual platforms also played a heavy role in EA's downturn, and now EA is smartly turning away from them.

His leaving means nothing, because he learned his lesson, with regards to trying to support the hardcore on Nintendo platforms. Riccitiello was one of the few early supporters -- and he changed his mind after several failed, yet quality attempts.. like DS: Extraction, which was a great Wii game, which of course only a couple Wii gamers bought.

[N4g_null]

If extraction was so good then why didn't you buy it? Out of 40 wii games that is not in my collection.

EA has crytek with a working engine and could even source out that engine to Nintendo if they wanted. The new need for speed, even a sim city port would have been cool.

It is a good bet that having origin on the wiiu would have hurt EAs relation with gamers. EA truely wasted this time on the wiiu. Many people would have bought a better madden and FIFA yet now they may just let EA sell or give up that license. 2k is better at it anyway.

Bring ports out means you need better value or a better game on a next gen system. I believe we may finally see the cod series die as killzone could offer a better online experience now since it does not suffer from bad framerates any more. It's going to be guitar hero all over again.

For example I bought razors edge because it has been mostly fixed. Yet now EA would have to go up against the likes of smash bros, wii fit u, galaxy, Mario kart and other million sellers from nintendo.

It seems EA was trying to go for a dreamcast effect yet only ended hurting them selves. Nintendos games where at their weakest during the Ngc. They at their strongest with the wii. EA has to understand one thing the real hardcore remember the 3DO.

EA would have been rewarded with great efforts on the wiiu but they wanted to play politics. If n4g goers are to be believed the wii owners don't know about the horrible mass effect problem. EA believed fans and over looked the dusty wii statements and though ports with no effort was going provide profit when these very same people already bought this game.

The fact is cod only sold because its game play framerate offered more action. Many pc gamers converted over. But wait cod isn't even made by EA that is the the home of the moh games and the battlefield next gen games that no one is hyping.

Beggars can not be choosy and with out sports the sin franchises, and crytek they would be irrilivant.

Could this be the first victim of the crash?

[Ulf]

"If extraction was so good then why didn't you buy it? Out of 40 wii games that is not in my collection. "

?

I own DS: Extraction. Where did I claim that I didn't? Or.. are you just making some stuff up?

[N4g_null]

Well good for you but most of the industry believes that games sucks. Thank you for supporting a bad game. It doesn't matter that you have the game what matters is supporting the idea that others should do the same when it was beyond inferior to even the weakest FPS. You know gamers use to spread the word about good games not this BS about support so we can get good games.

Isn't that one of the problems with the industry? We are really supporting some bad games.

[Yodagamer]

These "quality attempts" were not what people on wii wanted, look at resident evil 4 it sold a million copies (it was a port). What ea gave wii owners where games that were either crappy ports or versions nobody wanted ala rail shooters (it didn't even sell alot on ps3, like alot of wii "hardcore game" ports) . I bought extraction, but i would have preferred a tps horror game.

[Ulf]

An on-rails Horror game was all the Wii could handle. 64 MB of main memory, remember?

A TPS game requires a TON more, because it has freedom of movement -- unless you have a zillion loading screens... like RE 4 Wii. RE 4 Wii was fun, but it wasn't on par with DS:E for visual quality.

I don't see how you can claim that RE4 was a success, when it sold around 1M copies across 100M consoles, and a significant number of those sales were re-purchases from RE fans who wanted the best edition, or people who had nothing else to choose from, at the dawn of the system.

The thing that made RE4 worth making for the Wii was that is WAS a port -- i.e. it was cheap for them to bring it, because it was cheap to bring over. If RE4 Wii had sold 1M copies, as a new title, it would have been a *horrible* flop for CAPCOM, just like DS:E was for EA.

1M units == fail, not success, unless you are a port, or a cheap indie title.

[Yodagamer]

It was a very early title so those 100 million consoles were not around at the time it sold a million copies so that is a success for capcom and with a smaller Dev cost a million copies is enough for a profit on wii

[N4g_null]

Cod moh conduit metroid prime which actually was freeroaming all did fine.

What is funny about this game was they could have remixed it into a res evil like area based game. There are tons of ways to preload a map on the fly... I mean gta did that even on the ps2....

To go on red steel 2 up its visuals also.

Yet base your argument on shader tech and having to rework the assets. Which ammounts to laziness. It exposes the crutch that they rely on graphics rather than game play too much.

Back in the day we got ports of arcade games that really where not possible on consoles on the Nes. Also it is pretty easy to bump the polygon count down and remap all animations to the new asset.

If your game can not be fun with subpar graphics then it might not be fun with them. There is no excuse for subpar if you want to keep working in this field.

[Godmars290]

As or more curious if they'll become less or more pro-Xbox.

[KwietStorm_BLM]

You can't connect the dots with no lines.

[brave27heart]

Wishful thinking Wii U owners, but its a catch 22 situation. Third parties wont support Wii U without the install base to justify it and the install base wont be there without the quality games.

Its the gamecube all over again and the only people who can change it are Nintendos first party studios, but they need to step up and quickly.

[TuxedoMoon]

Most of the people who buy EA games, namely madden and fifa, don't buy Nintendo consoles. Few do, but most of them get either the 360 or the ps3. Most of those same people ONLY play sports games too and don't see Nintendo as a sports system...or as a system at all. Since, you know, Nintendo consoles only has kids games and doesn't have real games like the Battlefield and whatnot <-sarcasm.

I can't name any other EA multiplatform game that sold a lot on the wii. Did Boom blox and the Sim games sell better than their other games on the Nintendo systems?

[GraveLord]

Wii U audience is hungry? Is that why they ignore all 3rd party games and only buy NintendoLand and New Super Mario Bros. U?

[MegaLagann]

Why would you assume people would buy Batman, a game that was out for a year before hitting the Wii U, and why would you assume people would buy it at full price when the other versions were less?

Why would you assume people would buy Mass Effect 3, when on other consoles at the same time Mass Effect trilogy came out where you got all three games instead of the last one and it costed less?

Why would anyone assume people would buy rushed, sloppy ports or games that were available on other systems in droves?

It amazes me how third party companies bring a game to a the Wii U, and it runs worse (Mass Effect, Darksiders) or they take out features or DLC (Injustice) and yet are surprised when people don't buy it. If you give people an inferior version of a product, then people won't buy it, what a concept!

[Amigaengine]

If EA had released Mass Effect trilogy on WiiU i would have bought it. If EA had brought the real Madden 2013 to WiiU I would have bought it. Tiger Woods would have been another purchase.

That said Nintendo has to accept some blame. Reggie should have persuaded EA to bring ME Trilogy, good port of Madden, Fifa, Dead Space 3, Army of Two etc by offering something in return. Such as lower or zero licensing fees. Work with EA to develop one of Nintendo's many dormant franchises ? Criterion do the next F-Zero,Wave Race or maybe Bioware do the next Eternal Darkness Etc.

[Baka-akaB]

EA have been abysmal this gen .. but problem is the issues with third party games choice didnt just appear on Wii U and Wii . It was the same on n64 and gamecube with some publishers that actually trieda lot and got burned in return .

At some point nintendo gotta owns half the blame

[RuleofOne343]

Nothing cause EA will still want to push Origin onto all devices or where its a benefit to them & Nintendo will still say no thank you. EA will then use it games, developers & it position as a Publisher to dictate what system gets a port or not . so pretty much nothing will change.

[N4g_null]

You maybe right. Yet we don't know his replacement. I mean some people in Austin are happy but many are not.

Just imagine if the nintendo gamers are a seperate group and these companies are simply ignoring them to chase after graphic whores. Why not go pc?

[MultiConsoleGamer]

Absolutely nothing.

This whole article is a complete stretch. And you gotta love the doom and gloom fanboys in the comment section. They'll spin anything.

[stragomccloud]

Hopefully this is the first step in repairing damaged relationships.

[SAYGUH]

Give it up EA!!! Real tired of releasing ANOTHER Madden year after year & folks still go out & pay for that junk, especially my brother... It's the same fuckin game!! OMG!!! Get it together people!!!!!