Wii love from third party publishers
Electronic Arts, Activision, Ubisoft and Atari bigwigs have praised the Wii for its innovation and market expansion.
“”I believe the Wii will attract new and casual gamers to the world of interactive entertainment. It’s a fun, easy and economical system that will become a bridge to gaming for mainstream audiences. At EA, we are putting more support behind the Wii than any Nintendo hardware launch since the Super NES.””
It seems the relationship between Nintendo and third party publishers is going from strength to strength. Many Nintendo critics have stated numerous times that Nintendo need more third party publisher support so it appears Wii is a step in the right direction.
Head inside for more comments! “”I believe the Wii will attract new and casual gamers to the world of interactive entertainment. It’s a fun, easy and economical system that will become a bridge to gaming for mainstream audiences. At EA, we are putting more support behind the Wii than any Nintendo hardware launch since the Super NES.””
– Larry Probst, Chairman and CEO, Electronic Arts
“”The Wii is changing audience interaction, opening up whole new experiences that have never been possible in video games. With the instinctual control of the Wii Remote, Nintendo is advancing the gaming experience to the broadest audience of gamers. Activision is excited about the launch of the Wii and the opportunity it offers. So much so, we plan to have five titles available at launch – our strongest lineup ever for a new console. We have more development resources devoted to the Wii than to any previous Nintendo platform. The Wii is likely to have a profound impact on the size, growth and overall opportunities for the video game market.””
– Robert Kotick, Chairman and CEO, Activision, Inc.
“”The Wii control scheme opens up unexplored areas for our talented teams to innovate when creating games. It’s invigorating for us. We believe that it will help create a new level of interest in video games and engage more players around the world.””
– Laurent DeToc, President of Ubisoft North America
“”Nintendo’s strategy is expanding the market. We are thrilled.””
– David Pierce, President and CEO, Atari, Inc.
“”Nintendo’s vision perfectly aligns with our strategy to broaden our portfolio by allowing us to create new genres that have strong global appeal.””
– Shinichi Suzuki, President, Atlus U.S.A., Inc.
“”Video games are becoming more of a mainstream phenomenon than ever before with virtually all members of the family playing different games in the living room. Nintendo’s strategy of ease of play and mass marketing pricing is perfectly aligned with Disney.””
– Graham Hopper, Senior Vice President and General
Manager, Buena Vista Games
“”In order for our industry to continue to grow, we’ve got to think about gaming and games differently. That’s exactly what Nintendo is doing.””
– Geoff Mulligan, COO, Konami Digital Entertainment, Inc.
“”For established publishers, the Virtual Console model is a tremendous opportunity to extend our classic brands. Nobody ever thinks of a good book as retired – why shouldn’t great games live forever, too?””
– Naoya Tsurumi, CEO, Sega of America
“”With escalating costs for both developing games and for consumers buying new game systems, we applaud Nintendo’s drive to spread gaming to the masses – and we fully support that approach.””
– Brian Farrell, President and CEO, THQ, Inc.
However it seems some third party publishers will be unimpressed with Nintendo’s latest move to include Wii Sports as a free game with every Wii. Scott Steinberg, vice president of marketing at San Francisco game maker Sega, spoke to numerous third parties and says all would prefer if Wii was not bundled with a game as, understandably, it has the potential to impact their sales.
“”From a third-party standpoint, we’d prefer to have a platform without a bundle,”” he said. “”There’s a vote for ‘no bundle’ from every third party we’ve talked to.””
Source: IGN Wii, Wired News.
