EA's Riccitiello: Wii could use price cut, support toward third parties
EA CEO John Riccitiello feels that if the Wii would drop its price to $99 that it would "explode" back to its '07 and '08 sales levels. In an interview with IndustryGamers, the executive expressed that the recent Wii declines come from Microsoft and Sony offering competitive "gesture-based" peripherals against Nintendo's device.
Riccitiello also dragged out the classic complaint regarding Nintendo's treatment of third-party content. "I think it's a frustration for all third-party publishers, when a platform holder does less to promote third-party content. A great third-party company is Apple, a company that's all third-party content," he stated. "I don't care whether it's Mario or Twilight Princess or GoldenEye; it was their own content. I'm going back to N64, and I can go back to SNES if you want, but they've never really been a heavy third-party supporting system."
He concluded that it's not that Nintendo doesn't try to do good by third parties, just that Nintendo starts "the morning thinking what's best for [its] own intellectual property."
Riccitiello also dragged out the classic complaint regarding Nintendo's treatment of third-party content. "I think it's a frustration for all third-party publishers, when a platform holder does less to promote third-party content. A great third-party company is Apple, a company that's all third-party content," he stated. "I don't care whether it's Mario or Twilight Princess or GoldenEye; it was their own content. I'm going back to N64, and I can go back to SNES if you want, but they've never really been a heavy third-party supporting system."
He concluded that it's not that Nintendo doesn't try to do good by third parties, just that Nintendo starts "the morning thinking what's best for [its] own intellectual property."
