Ubisoft and EA discuss early mistakes with Wii

While both Ubisoft and EA hit the Wii rolling their efforts they say were misplaced, but now they say theyre on the right track

newWe all know developers were a bit slow on the uptake with the Wii. While many developed games for the system that were shoehorned onto the console (with exceptions) publishers failed to anticipate how the Wii would turn out and some are still struggling to change their plans and develop games for the Wii that people actually want. Ubisoft and Electronic Arts have spoken to 1UP about their Wii strategy and whether or not they’ve learnt their lessons on console.

Ubisoft and EA’s starts to the Wii couldn’t have been more different. Ubisoft had the right idea, producing original franchises based on motion controls for an experience you couldn’t get anywhere else. This was mainly seen with Red Steel, and while Red Steel wasn’t the best game the vision was there. Ubisoft VP of sales and marketing Tony Kee speaking to 1up said "We were lucky enough to have good relationships with [Nintendo] at a high level where we had really good conversations about their next system and what they wanted to do with it, and we immediately believed in them and they believed in us and we went for it very early and made a couple exclusive Wii titles." EA on the other hand took the port and add waggle approach.

EA thought that simply porting games and adding on motion controls is what people wanted, obviously they now know this isn’t the case.  "I don’t think we — I don’t think almost anyone — had the vision a few years ago to really understand the phenomenon this would be," says Carolyn Feinstein, EA’s Group VP of North American publishing.

These interviews are an eye opener to what these two (and we hope) other companies are now seeing in the Wii, they also explain why games like Dante’s Inferno from EA and Assassins Creed II are missing out on a Wii iteration.

Source: 1up.com