After a fortnight of ‘How To Fix Nintendo’ articles and speculation about Nintendo ‘going mobile’, EA has just reported a net income loss of $308 million for the quarter ending December 31. Does that mean we can expect a spate of ‘How To Fix EA’ articles over the coming weeks?
I wouldn’t hold my breath.
Over the last 14 days we’ve had to read, listen and endure a host of articles regarding Nintendo’s future. Most of these solutions will be familiar to you: Nintendo must embrace free-to-play, Nintendo must take their brands to the mobile market, Nintendo must go third party.
But hold on a minute: EA has embraced the free-to-play model. EA has taken its brands to the mobile market. EA is a thirdy party publisher. Pray tell clever clogs — if this is how you plan to save Nintendo, how will you save EA?
Of course it’s a silly discussion. Of course the circumstances are different: these are two different companies with different values, different models, different brands, different everything, but the comparison is startling: here is a company that is doing precisely what journalists/analysts/gamers suggest Nintendo should be doing, but is losing more money at a faster rate.
Can you hear anyone suggest that EA should completely change its business model? Is anyone demanding that EA become precisely like Nintendo, or any other company for that matter? Nope. The silence is deafening. Everyone expects a company like EA to lose money. Business as usual.
It’s madness. And it leads to another question: why do we care so much about what Nintendo does and so little about EA should or shouldn’t be doing. Why is that?
Is it because Nintendo is constantly attempting to subvert and disrupt the video games market we’ve learned to love? Maybe. Is it tall poppy syndrome? Do consumers want Nintendo to fail. Is there resentment at its attempts to bring gaming to a broader market. It’s hard to tell. In a couple of weeks time we’ll have forgotten about EA’s losses but we’ll continue to debate and discuss Nintendo obsessively. We’ll get angry at them for being stubborn, for refusing to move with the times, for refusing to become more like EA.
It’s weird, people engaged with video game culture have such a strange relationship with Nintendo. We think we know better when it fails, but don’t necessarily celebrate when it finds success. We react with glee when it stumbles, or become genuinely upset. For some reason, whether we love or hate them, we can’t stop talking about Nintendo.
Perhaps it’s because Nintendo made the consoles that sat underneath our televisions as we grew up. Maybe it’s because we grew up with its controllers wedged in our hands. Maybe it’s that physical, actual connection. EA just made the games, but Nintendo is a brand intertwined with our childhood: the connection is just too strong to break.
Again the word is ‘weird’. We have such a weird relationship with Nintendo. It’s like the obsession we can’t shake. The posters hanging on a bedroom wall we just can’t take down. We want to move on but we can’t, because Nintendo represents something deeper in most of us. We want Nintendo to grow with us as adults, but it remains static. Because it can. Because it’s a company that sells video games and nothing more. We find that difficult to accept. That can make us angry. Or it can make us passionate about Nintendo and its philosophy — either way it’s an emotional reaction with next-to-no basis in the actual facts of the situation.
No-one will try and fix EA. But for some reason we’ll never stop trying to fix Nintendo. I guess people just care a little too much.
Comments
83 responses to “EA Just Reported Another Quarterly Loss, Where Are All The ‘How To Fix EA’ Articles?”
Maybe it’s because they know they’re beyond repair 😛
Interesting note on the comparisons though, wouldn’t have occurred to me.
how does EA even make a loss given how their business is so geared towards money milking
When you try to milk a cow too much…
…you pull the tail and get covered in shit?
Exactly, and EA is and should be covered in shit
People please, EA are not evil, they are not out to get us, they dont want to con us out of cash. they are just a companie of electronic artist who lost there way, read this and tell me you dont respect them.
Can a Computer Make You Cry?
Right now, no one knows. This is partly because many would consider the very idea frivolous. But it’s also because whoever successfully answers this question must first have answered several others.
Why do we cry? Why do we laugh, or love, or smile? What are the touchstones of our emotions?
Until now, the people who asked such questions tended not to be the same people who ran software companies. Instead, they were writers, filmmakers, painters, musicians. They were, in the traditional sense, artists.
We’re about to change that tradition. The name of our company is Electronic Arts.
Software worthy of the minds that use it.
We are a new association of electronic artists united by a common goal—to fulfill the enormous potential of the personal computer.
In the short term, this means transcending its present use as a facilitator of unimaginative tasks and a medium for blasting aliens. In the long term, however, we can expect a great deal more.
These are wondrous machines we have created, and in them can be seen a bit of their makers. It is as if we had invested them with the image of our minds. And through them, we are learning more and more about ourselves.
We learn, for instance, that we are more entertained by the involvement of our imaginations than by passive viewing and listening. We learn that we are better taught by experiences than by memorization. And we learn that the traditional distinctions—the ones that are made between art and entertainment and education—don’t always apply.
Towards a language of dreams.
In short, we are finding that the computer can be more than just a processor of data.
It is a communications medium: an interactive tool that can bring people’s thoughts and feelings closer together, perhaps closer than ever before. And while fifty years from now, its creation may seem no more important than the advent of motion pictures or television, there is a chance it will mean something more.
Something along the lines of a universal language of ideas and emotions. Something like a smile.
The first publications of Electronic Arts are now available. We suspect you’ll be hearing a lot about them. Some of them are games like you’ve never seen before, that get more out of your computer than other games ever have. Others are harder to categorize—and we like that.
Watch us.
We’re providing a special environment for talented, independent software artists. It’s a supportive environment, in which big ideas are given room to grow. And some of America’s most respected software artists are beginning to take notice.
We think our current work reflects this very special commitment. And though we are few in number today and apart from the mainstream of the mass software marketplace, we are confident that both time and vision are on our side.
Join us. We see farther.
and i must say it is a disgrace how all you so called “gamers” can bash on a company because they have lost sight of what’s important, how dare you be so closed minded to someone who directly shaped my childhood, i bet if people would stop hating for 10 seconds and use there brains instead of just following the “we hate ea” train, we might be able to bring them back to the good side of game development. i am not an ea fanboy, but when the day comes that they decide to return, i will stand behind them
please think before you post
EA is by no stretch of the imagination the same as when that was written. Consider it like the ship of Theseus: as time goes on, the individual parts of the whole are replaced by new ones. what was once a collection of artists united in a common goal of pushing the boundaries is now a collection of artists making what they are told to make. we “bash” them because they listen to “old media” strategies on what to make. they could *Literally* ask every single one of their customers what they’d like to see made, and do a census on what they get back and make the damn thing. I don’t hate ea to be on the train – I hate them because the allegations of insider trading by executives implies that they were well aware of substandard material being pushed out of their studios, and that is disgraceful if the allegations prove true.
So, Dear @profyogert, I implore you to please think before you post.
Software worthy of the minds that approve it.
“How to Fix EA”
an article by me
Nuke it from orbit. It’s the only way to be sure.
People want EA to burn for their sins. People want Nintendo to keep making games forever.
write a save EA article and nobody bats an eyelid
write a how to save nintendo article and gizmodo loses their minds
you need to first buy the “Buy additional shares” DLC that allows you to destroy 3 other video game companies which then allows you to unlock the “Short sell Nuke” killstreak reward
I firmly believe that every gamer is a Nintendo gamer at heart. The reason people get so riled up about them and their decisions is because everybody wants to like Nintendo. They’re quirky and interesting. They appeal to our inner child. They always put out products polished like no other. They’ve been around forever.
It’s a testament to what Nintendo has achieved. I honestly don’t think anyone would care if EA disappeared and someone else picked up a couple of their better franchises. You could probably say the same about 90% of publishers actually.
Probably not far from the truth either considering that before Sony or Microsoft brought their consoles out there was only Nintendo’s Sega’s Atari’s and so on to choose from. All of those are gone now except Nintendo.
> every gamer is a Nintendo gamer at heart
Raising my hand by way of counterexample. I’ve played very few Nintendo games that I’ve actually liked. This may be because they go so far out of their way to be cute. I can’t hear “It’s a-me, Mario!” without wanting to turn the console off.
I’ve bought multiple Nintendo consoles, but in most cases it was 3rd-party games driving the decision.
That said…
Nintendo as a company has always seemed well-intentioned. EA started well in the 80s (you may recall they started as a vehicle to ensure that game programmers were properly recognised) but in recent years they have consistently been “evil”. They have very little goodwill among gamers.
Frankly, if EA shut down, somebody else would buy up the key franchises and developers and life would continue pretty much as usual. If Nintendo shut down, it’s unlikely that their legacy would be continued in quite the same fashion. While I don’t like their games, many people do, and few companies make games with quite the same sense of aesthetics and gameplay, so it would make a much bigger hole in the heart of gaming.
You monster.
Agreed
I have never played any Nintendo games. They look stupid and quirky.
Well, the difference is that for Nintendo, it’s all good intentions to try and help Nintendo recover and succeed, even if some of them are wrong they’re just trying to help.
As for EA, most people want to see it crash and burn and become an exclamation point to the games industry on how you shouldn’t make games or treat your customers.
Give people ability to buy of steam. Get rid of stupidity. Cut down cost invest into new ip, if it pays up milk it for about 3 to 4 years, then rinse repeat. 15 years time release some old stuff as classic and if it was done properly you can cash in on it again.
Is that it? I duno that’s not exactly my area.
In my humble opinion, EA embodies everything that is currently bad and wrong about game publishing.
From in-app purchased, draconian always-on DRM and over priced product, through to foisting off clearly broken titles to their audience.
The only way to “fix” EA, again in my humble opinion, is to either reinvent itself from the ground up, or to just let it die out
i want to fucking know how they reported a huge loss for a company known for milking every dollar out of their customers and is the publishers for so many AAA titles
Honestly, probably because AAA titles are ridiculously inflated from a staff level compared to their content levels.
At the end of the day though, you know they’ll blame “Piracy” and “Lost Sales” because of it. Not gross mismanagement and bloated staff counts.
Interesting article.
I have always maintained that Nintendo likes to be the first gaming experience for children, solidifying itself in our childhood memories.
Though I must admit that I never considered that this was exactly the reason some people are so passionate about pushing Nintendo forward. I suppose I foolishly lumped them in with the “Nintendo is dead” crowd.
Anyway, as I said, this is an interesting article. And some interesting pov’s
Well… maybe it’s a matter of scale?
How much difference is there in the shortfall form projections in EA vs those in Nintendos figures?
Also, the ‘How to fix EA’ articles have been going around for quite some time (remember the large number of people calling for Ricciotello’s head)… it’s just that they’re limited to the financial pages, not the gaming ones.
You won’t see “How to fix EA” articles on the scale of the Nintendo ones we’ve read through for two decades. We care about Nintendo. Between the NES, The SNES and the N64, they helped give gamers like me an awesome childhood, even though I was always a generation behind.
The criticize, because they care. That doesn’t mean that armchair CEO’s know better.
I’d give fixing EA a go………..then again I quite like competing in tough mudders too……
Hope you do this for MS and Sony, Mark. Not sure things are going to be in the black anywhere.
You’re right — not only is MS hemorrhaging badly, but their hardware division is losing the most money of the lot! HOW CAN WE FIX THIS!?
We don’t, since they’ve posted record profits, and are currently making money off hardware – ignoring last year’s Surface writeoff, at least.http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2014/01/beleaguered-microsoft-posts-record-revenue-for-q2-2014/
Can’t be any surer than that!
The difference is that people still actually like Nintendo and want them to succeed. EA not so much.
Nintendo haven’t been voted the worst company in the world two years in a row.
All I hope is that EA soon start to realise where they’re going wrong and that they can’t peddle the same average games year upon year. They used to make good games. Not great games, but enjoyable games. The sooner they remember how to do that the better
Yeah, you only want to fix things you care about and want to succeed. EA’s done such damage to their reputation through such openly and brazenly hostile anti-consumer moves that their missteps can no longer be attributed to miscommunications and poor awareness of the market like Nintendo, and more down to not realizing they’d get caught.
Edit: At some point though, people really are going to have to catch on to Nintendo being just as bad when it comes to their openly-hostile and discriminatory practices against certain nations in terms of pricing/release dates/reward programs/DRM/etc.
I get far more use out of Battlefield and Mass Effect than I’ve gotten out of Mario. Is it wrong that I respect EA more?
I feel like Nintendo is less consumer friendly than EA is, but that’s probably just me. The EA hate bandwagon is getting pretty damn boring.
No, I agree with you, EA occasionally does nice things, like their origin humble bundle (with steam keys) and ditching their online passes. nintendo takes their fans for granted.
Sure, EA as a company occasionally does something that doesn’t seem like they got Satan to sign off on it first, but most of these have come not long after they’ve been pulled up in a big way on doing something decidedly anti-consumer, and with the goal of stating that they really aren’t as bad as people think they are, rather than because it’s a decent thing to do.
To give some examples, they made all their online passes for Xbox 360 games free to download a while back. Would’ve been a nice gesture if they hadn’t been one of the major instigators behind online passes in the first place, and if they hadn’t been under the impression that the basic functionality of online passes would’ve been built into the Xbox One’s original online DRM plans anyway. Sim City is set to get an offline option soonish, which also would’ve been a nice gesture if they hadn’t lied about the game needing to be played online in the first place and only adding the mode due to backlash about the exclusion of basic functionality people expect from that series and how poorly their always online functionality works. The also did indeed have the Origin Humble Bundle, but only after being called out after a rep stated that sales on games cheaper their value and that people should want to pay full price for their products (although, granted, money being raised for charity is a fantastic thing to come out of it).
It’s always great to see a company do something nice for consumers, but how much of it is sincerity and how much is saving face when it only occurs after they’ve had a slap on the wrist?
still, better then nothing
credit where it’s due on network passes, they didn’t know what DRM would be like on PS4 (edit: or if they did, even better) and they made all their previous games passes free. They were one of the first to ditch it too.
nintendo also thinks that “sales on games cheaper their value and that people should want to pay full price for their products.” I believe they’ve actually said something to that effect talking about eshop.
and at the moment they’re currently in the middle of botching pokemon banks release due to network lulz and poor excuses as to why it has to be online with next to no communication to it’s status.
At least EA can admit when the’re wrong, eventually, as opposed to “please understand” :p
I also play more EA titles than Nintendo ones these days, but it hasn’t built them any kind of good-will or affection from me.
I love Battlefield, and I’ve sunk many many hours into the series, but that doesn’t mean I need them to drop a new version every 1-2 years.
Without fail, every time EA releases a big game it’s a raw, bleeding, buggy mess. They then proceed to spend a good year trying to apologise and clean it up, by which point everyone has moved on, and is waiting for a new game on the horizon.
I’m not normally the kind of person who takes enjoyment from the misery of others, but EA have proven time and again that their number one objective is making money. Not making good games. Not pleasing fans. Making money. Pure and simple.
Ironically it’s this very attitude that has directly resulted in the negative way gamers view their brand, and in all likelihood, their poor profit earnings.
I don’t think anyone is going to care that EA are losing money until they give us a reason to care about them.
/2cents
Oh look, the reality people missed. It’s like when people don’t know how to interpret their feelings on movies. If they like it, it’s objectively good, not just in line with their tastes. It’s always better to step outside yourself, gain a bit of perspective.
Nintendo needs to try keep up with hardware specs of the newer consoles.
Actually release some games for there console
Focus on the party aspect
Keep making old franchise games, but try make some new ones too..
dont name there next console anything to do with the Wii… i honestly didnt realise this was a new console until a few months back.
Dont focus marketting on a tablet controller. nobody cares.
EA needs to allow origin games to be added into steam as a non-steam game.
get rid of browser based interfaces like for bf4
lower there expectation of what people will pay for games.
Agree about the specs – if the WiiU had comparable specs to the XBone and PS4 we’d be clambering over the corpses of ‘casual’ gamers to ensure we got ourselves the coolest console. But the Wii went casual and the WiiU put the final nail in the coffin.
I do hope Ninty find a way to claw back into the black though.
the gamecube had comparable specs and we how that went, I think they really need to work on courting third parties, comparable specs is just a part of that.
Fair point – I grabbed myself a gamecube and played it to death. I bought a Wii and while I grabbed 10 games over it’s life, it barely got played. Now I’ve not bothered with a WiiU at all yet.
The reason – the games. The gamecube stoof out – even some of the games on the Wii stood out but there’s not enough on the WiiU yet to warrant the expense. If it was able to play the games the XBone and PS4 are now playing then maybe it would get more consideration – especially if it could incorporate the second screen well.
I’m afraid though that it is too late this gen.
You might appreciate this article.
http://www.kotaku.com.au/2014/01/how-to-fix-how-to-fix-nintendo-articles/
The difference is that people love Nintendo’s intentions and we want them to succeed however know that they need some guidance because it seems that – despite obviously falling out of touch with us – they actually do care about their gamers and want us to have good experiences with the games we play.
EA on the other hand, want to get their products out the door, alienate the customers who buy from them alongside the studios who actually build the games for them while at the same time trying to make as much money as humanly possible. They care about their own pockets and the pockets of their investors. This is not to say that they’re beyond salvation, it’s just that their entire corporate structure, direction, and culture need to be completely scrapped so that we can see a shift in their approach so that we’ll start caring about them.
Ah it sucks doesn’t EA? Now being a complete prick in the gaming world finally hurting. I’ll never forgive them for what they did to Command and Conquer when they brought Westwood. Not to mention the war zone SimCity is? As for Nintendo I’ll bet all my teeth that they outlast you.
Get over Westwood. They themselves were running command conquer into the ground before EA gobbled them up
Nintendo – Here’s a game for $70. Enjoy.
EA – Here’s an interface for a game, that’ll be $70. You want characters? Another $30 thanks! You want actual levels? $50 thanks! You want weapons? $10 per weapon thanks! Oh, you want to play online? Here’s our own badly made system… Another $30 thanks!
This, pretty much.
EA may not have pioneered DLC and microtransactions but it’s name has become synonymous with the nickel and dime tactics of modern games publishing.
2 years later….
EA – heres the game and all of the content for $50 normally, $25 during the current sale.
Nintendo – Here’s the game for $70. Enjoy.
I don’t think nintendo is entirely innocent when it comes to price gouging
Amen – I was explaining this to a friend yesterday – try finding any of the Wii’s better games for a reasonable price, 3DS and hell even some DS titles are in the same boat… Overpriced
Yet you never considered that EA will flood the retail market with a game, creating more supply than demand, you’ll then obviously see a mass of those games in the bargain bins 2 years later, as no one cares about them because within those 2 years, EA have already released 2 sequels. It’s a vicious cycle of creating more crap just for the sake of more money. Sure, it keeps developers and people in factories and distribution busy and with more money in there pockets more regularly than Nintendo, but is it really worth it when you compare the quality of output in games between the two companies and the time they spend making them?
NintendoN’T do that. They have the better strategy, making a quality product that people will still want to play, after 2 years and 2 sequels after EA’s third game in the series.
Also at the risk of sounding like a hippie, is it really worth it when you consider the environmental cost in C02 emissions just to make these annual sequels that really aren’t bringing anything new to the table besides some re-done textures, more polygons and some minor tweaks in gameplay?
Forget the truly original and innovative developers! Just keep putting your money in EA’s pockets to repeat that cycle ad naseum so you can buy the crap in the bargain bins every couple of years.
People want Nintendo to be fixed so that they survive in some form.
People don’t really care if EA get fixed or if they survive or not – there’s no sort of consistent philosophy underpinning all of EA’s games the way there is with Nintendo’s – they’re mostly just products built to target particular market segments identified by the marketing people. That’s not to say the games are all shit – they’ve made some really great games over the years. But if they went bust, those games would still get made by somebody else (or at least the same people would go make similar games for somebody else).
“Perhaps it’s because Nintendo made the consoles that sat underneath our televisions as we grew up.”
I’m going with this one, although I only had the NES back then (moved to MD and then PSone, though I also did have an Atari and C64 prior), but the NES is possibly the console that alot of current journalists and average age gamer have the most memories attached to it.
Super Mario Bros, Metroid, Zelda are 3 huge name games and likely that almost everyone that had a NES had played at least one of them on top of stacks of other amazing titles.
From there, I think we feel as though we want Nintendo to capture our hearts again with a system that is like the NES or SNES, but with all the modern features that both Sony and MS have brought to the table.
Im feeling a little burned by Nintendo lately. Hence my interest in their fate.
Having recently bought a 3DS I have been horrified to find that all the half decent games NEVER get cheaper. Top games from over a year ago are still the same price as release. A price that is often more than the cost of a non-handheld triple A title. Something is suss here. I am at the point where I am willing to buy every 3ds game pre-owned to avoid Nintendo getting their cut. And guess what, pre-owned versions of the titles in question are never more that $5 cheaper.
So much this – I’d own more than 4 games for the system if they’d fix their pricing – over the same period (since owning a 3DS) I’ve probably bought upwards of 50 Xbox 360 games, all of them significantly cheaper!
People love Nintendo but they speak disparagingly of the Wii U because of this. The Wii U is fast becoming this generation’s Virtual Boy… it might be a great novelty but is poorly executed due to bad programming(that 3rd party developers are reluctant to code for) and poor hardware. And to put that in perspective, look at the Virtual Boy vs the Oculus Rift; the same brilliant idea almost but now the hardware has caught up, and they’re viewed at different ends of the spectrum because of this.
I don’t know anyone that likes EA, mainly due to the negative stuff which they typically bring to the table every time. I think people would be happy to see it go belly-up, just as they’d be sad to see Capcom or Nintendo do the same.
I’d recommend people buy a PS4 and not a Vita(unless you’re going to hack it), a 3DS and not a Wii U, and 50/50 on the PS3 or 360 for various reasons. It’s because the things which make those particular systems great is not the brand, but what they do and can play. I think Nintendo should bite the bullet with the Wii U and plan their next system… give it a nice standard controller like PS4, easy to program for, more powerful than PS4, then optional Oculus Rift/camera/whatever support. And call it something other than Wii… like UNES or NCube or something. Release it in 2 years from now.
Holy moly, I completely forgot about the Virtua Boy…
The Virtual Boy and Oculus Rift have practically nothing in common, the two are incomparable. The Virtual Boy is more of an early peek into the 3DS than anything.
As for calling it quits on the Wii U and releasing another console so soon after, that’s not a solution either. Sega tried that, and it killed them.
The Virtual Boy was an attempt to bring an affordable stereoscopic 3D headset to the home market. The Oculus Rift is…? Virtual Reality was around when I was a kid. I used an expensive setup in a mall once… it cost $5(which was a lot back then) for not very long, and was awesome. The Virtual Boy was basically trying to cash in on the immersive virtual reality hype, but was a bit garbage by comparison. So tell me again how they are incomparable. It’s a lot like the old red/green glasses for 3D movies… it’s back in because the tech has gotten better.
What is your solution for Nintendo? Flog the dead horse? Because that’s what they’re doing. And Nintendo are not Sega. Nintendo have a lot more money… and Sega is also still around, they just are not making consoles. I also said 2 years… how soon is too soon for you? Or are you just against the idea because you have a Wii U and you don’t want to feel like you’ve wasted your money on it and you want to see it continually supported?
Nintendo are up against the PC Master Race/PS4/Xbone/Smartphones pretty much. Maybe the Vita if Sony get their act together. It’s some pretty tough competition, but people love a lot of their IP. Many just don’t want to buy a Wii U to play them. If/when Nintendo announce their next console, and they make it superior to the PS4/Xbone, easy to code for, with a strong lineup of games, people will lap it up. The crucial thing is that they need to time it so they’re ahead or comparable with their competitors(Sony/Microsoft) and not behind S/M’s next console.
An affordable (although I’m not sure that was really the case with the VB) stereoscopic 3D viewer is not the same thing as an affordable VR headset. That is why they are incomparable. Yeah they were trying to get in on the hype (I was around for those early days of VR in the arcades too), but like you said – the VB is more akin to 3D movies. Which is why I said the VB is more like the 3DS than anything else, it’s got very little to do with VR.
My solution? I don’t have one. I’m just a guy who plays games, I don’t know anything about important things like running a business. I don’t feel like I wasted money on my Wii U, at all. The hardware is great, and it has a strong lineup of games too. I don’t understand at all why people are ignoring it. so much.
I’m against the idea because it seems like a dumb idea. To sink so much money into R&D for a console only to drop it and start over at a lukewarm reception seems like far more monumental a waste than to tough it out and make some of the money back by supporting the thing, and just leave the next one to fall where it may. The 3DS had a slow first year, but then it took off. Hell even the DS had a fairly low-key first year before it absolutely rocketed off. Besides, Nintendo as a company is in far better a position financially than any of the others. They could ship out another complete flop after this and still go another round. Hell they already went through the failures of both the Virtual Boy and 64DD back-to-back and still came out on top afterwards.
Another thing I don’t get is why people think they need to “match the power” of the other systems. I mean just take a look at the Vita and 3DS. Pretty big mismatch there, but does it matter? Nope. All a more powerful Nintendo will mean is that people will have to pay more for it. And that will just turn people away – they already complain about the Wii U being too expensive as it is, why will slapping an extra couple hundred dollars onto that entice them to buy in? They also complain it has no games, but then go and buy a PS4 or Xbone which seem to have even less on offer. So I don’t know. People make no sense.
The main thing just feels like a lack of awareness. Too many people don’t know the Wii U exists, or they think it’s an add-on for Wii, or any other number of things. They definitely should have marketed it better than they did.
Nintendo had to skimp to make it affordable. What makes VR: VR? That you can’t see anything else but the screen in front of you(immersion). That if you move your head, the field of view moves with you. The gimped VB didn’t have the gyro’s and feedback like the OR does, but it was the conceded effort of VR for its time. Even down to “Virtual” in its name. It’s NOT VR, just their attempt. I would say it’s comparable, but we might just have to agree to disagree. The 3D movie comment was with respect to old red/green 3D glasses and how 3D movies “went out of fashion” but then came back in in the last few years as the tech improved. The idea is “old”, like VR.
I’m also just a gamer. But as a gamer, I know what I want. As I hinted at, I have a lot of consoles… but like most gamers, I’m not made out of money. And the reason why I don’t have a Wii U is that there are so many “better” options out there, and it doesn’t look like it would offer me bang for my buck. That last point is the main one. I’ve read so many articles on how developers are ditching it because the hardware is too hard to code for/weak or it simply doesn’t look like it would have the sales to make it worthwhile. Steam has a strong lineup of games. The PS3/360 also do. The PS4/Xbone already have more than the Wii U I believe… but more importantly they have the consumer/developer confidence.
They’re Nintendo and they SHOULD be investing in their R&D and next gen stuff all the time. Maybe releasing a new console in the immediate future is a bad idea… but then when is a good time? Certainly not right before Sony/Microsoft unveil their next one. If you are a monopoly, you don’t need to worry about your competitors… if you’re not, you do! That’s why Sony killed Microsoft at E3, and PS4’s were sold out everywhere. You can argue supply/etc, but even the Amazon poll of 38k:2k was pretty indicative. I have a PS4, and some of my friends have Xbones, but I only know one friend who has a Wii U. It’s not the price, it’s just that the Wii U is a DISTANT third. Maybe even a distant 5th place considering the lineup of games on PS3/360… or 6th place if you include PC.
ports. comparable power means one less barrier to port multi platform games. just look at how much the wii missed out on. one of the vitas strengths is that it’s good enough to run some ps3 ports and it’s got a decent library of them.
Dropping the Wii U now and starting the next system would lose consumer trust. Nintendo would be alienating the millions of people who bought Wii U’s, and all they could day is “Oh, that system flopped, but buy this system and we promise it won’t happen again!” It’d be PR suicide, and would have a huge impact on the money they make.
The Wii U has had a bad start, that’s for sure, but it’s not done. It’s a great system, and while it only has one “Must-own” title, the sales sure as hell will improve throughout this year.
The Wii U has already lost consumer trust. And PR suicide can be bounced back from… look at the Xbone. A lot of 3rd party developers have dropped the Wii U, because it’s hard to code for, doesn’t have the grunt, and there isn’t a large market to make it definitely worthwhile for them. It’s kept on life support by Nintendo. There are great consoles on either side of the Wii U with amazing libraries with huge promise and a bright future… but the Wii U is basically “sorry our princess is in another castle” when it comes to potential. It basically would need some INCREDIBLE exclusives to be appealing and move consoles atm, and we’re talking Nintendo-only exclusives since of the above-mentioned 3rd party problems.
They need to design another system anyway, because something does need to come next. And yes it would be stupid to just plop it down with no titles… but if it was good enough, if it was like a metallic gold Zelda cartridge Triforce version of a PS4, people would be ALL over it. Nintendo has been around for a long time, and they’ve had their flops like the Virtual Boy and have bounced back. Maybe they should be patient and wait out this whole generation with mediocrity… but that’s a lot of potential profit down the tube.
Absolutely people care, its obvious that if they dont, in the case of EA, no one seems to bother. But in the case of Nintendo people are up in arms. Im one of them myself. Grew up with nes, snes, n64, GBA, DS. I even bought a gamecube a few years after release when they were cheap, but thats where my devotion ended.
Simply put, i grew up with them well into my mid 20’s. Id be happy to continue supporting them but it seems that they either dont realise that their once most rabbid fanbase has grown up or they just dont care. Their reluctance to acknowledge this, let alone do anything to change it is whats making me turn on them.
The fact that they would go to the trouble of making a tablet out of a controller for example, that still uses pressure sensitive touch controls instead of the superior technology found in todays mobile phones baffles me and just proves their arrogance. For a long time nintendo told us what was best and we gladly accepted it because they did once know. There were very few around who could challenge them on this at the time. But times have changed and nintendo’s inability to change with it will eventually be their downfall. However all that being said i would still buy any of their games that may make it to another platform in a heartbeat. Im not suggesting that this would definitely be the answer to their problems but the way they are going, would it hurt to try? I think they might just see that there are plenty of people who want to play their games, they just dont want their god awful hardware to do so. This may just lead them to either making a console people actually want or getting out of the hardware side of it altogether and focus on what they really are good at.
It should be worrying to all gamers that EA is posting another loss.
EA controls the lion’s share of strong IP; YES I understand EA has done some awful things in the last couple of years
I don’t think they will go belly up but we have seen them start to cut games from development (C&C)
They need to pull back and refocus.
Cut all the DRM policy’s they are trying to push, it’s doing too much damage to an already damaged brand (Looking at you SIMCITY)
Stop the yearly cycle of games, if they haven’t changed the mechanics don’t release a new game (Sports games, drop a small DLC for roster and skins) further to that because of the yearly cycles we are seeing games that aren’t ready for full release and packed with bugs that don’t get fixed quick because the team has moved on to the DLC’s (BF3 and 4)
Ensure you have enough Server scalability to cater for an online game
Run a Brand based PR campaign that says sorry to gamers for shitting on them and lets everyone know they are trying to change and listen to the public
No-one cares about fixing EA. No-one is worried about EA. People actually care about Nintendo and the franchises it has created. That’s why (it helps that Nintendo was around for the childhood of the 20-somethings and 30-somethings of today, and made games they played as little kids, but also EA has always presented as a soulless unloveable corporate behemoth).
stop killing beloved franchises, C&C, Ultima, SimCity I’m looking at you.
The sole reason for the EA hate is that they are successful. But at the same time theyve shown willingness to experiment with different models of DLC and payments. Yes, microtransactions in Dead Space 3 sucked hard, but someone was going to try it sooner or later and thanks to the backlash I doubt we will see it again.
Battlefield 4 being buggy? It’s the problem with the release schedule of games. Gamers now expect the big titles to and September October November and to not do that is generally looked as a bad thing. However they have committed to supporting the game with new content for a long time. Premium is successful and has shown to be excellent value for money.
EA isn’t perfect, but to hate them for making mistakes is harsh. When they make mistakes the industry looks and learns, without EA taking risks on new technologie andpayment models we won’t see things moving.
Because they are the hero that gamers deserve, but not the one they need right now… and so we’ll hate them.. because they can take it… because they are not a hero… they are a silent guardian, a watchful protector… a Dark Knight…
It’s not tall poppy syndrome. It’s what they DO with the power. Like Mr Burns, only not as loveable. Among their crimes; always-on DRM(I dodged the Sim City bullet thanks to this), buying/gutting studios(Westwood- Command&Conquer for example), Origin & banning forum accounts/games people had bought, online passes/DLC/milking customers, manipulation of the gaming industry… and I’m sure there are many more. Feel free to add them.
How is origin a crime?
I don’t have an Origin account, but I think if your account was banned on their forum, you lost your games as well. I think there was a “use your account within two years or lose your games” thing too. Oh and also there is the shutting down servers thing too.
The only good thing I see about Origin is that it is competition with Steam to prevent a monopoly.
My game playing took off with the arrival of a NES one Xmas. I loved it. Naturally, I ‘upgraded’ to a SNES when it arrived. Loved it even more. Things were simple back then. A PC was a very expensive, and technically challenging piece of hardware to own, and had distinctly different catalogue of games on it (tactical games, flight sims, simulation games in general). There was a significant point of difference between PCs and consoles.
Go forward some 20 or so years, say, to 2012, and there were Microsoft and Sony and PCs (and the Wii), and there was less difference than every before. Big games frequently appeared on all three big systems (excluding the Wii for technical reasons). In the middle and end parts of the PlayStation 3 and Xbox360s long shelf-lives, there were times where I felt like it didn’t matter which one you owned – there were so few exclusives that enticed me.
My point: When I heard about this thing called the WiiU, I hoped with all my gaming heart, that Nintendo would come out swinging with new – not updated versions, not HD remakes – versions of there super franchises that defined most of the late 80s and early 90s for me. I wanted to see brand new Zelda, F-Zero, Pilotwings, Starfox, Mario Kart, even Wave Race.
But the console came out and I saw nothing that grabbed me. Like people have said all through these comments: people are vociferous about Nintendo because they have great memories of games that had their own uniquely consistent feel.
I used to applaud Nintendo for taking time (geez, do they take their sweet time) releasing games so that the quality would be high and up to what people expect. But there comes a point where now I just wish they’d take a quarter of a page out of EAs book and just start making some bloody games!!
Love your first 2 paragraphs, in regards to your point in the 3rd paragraph I’d say hold out! They take time but when they deliver it truly makes you happy they’re not more like EA, otherwise we’d be playing (or not) New Super Mario Bros #29 with micro transactions and in need of an internet connection for the day 1 patch.
Dude! Don’t forget Microsoft Golf! R.I.P
easy fix: put games back on steam and stop ruining franchises e.g C&C
The headline reminds me of many of Andrew Bolt’s articles in regards to why some ‘Leftist’ media outlets don’t report on particular stories that the ‘Right’ media do. (like race issues, climate change etc).
Make a better Sim City.
Make a better Need for Speed.
Make a better FIFA.
Make a better Madden.
Pump out 20 more expansions for The Sims.
rinse, repeat.
They were going to do this anyway, not better; but just above par for last years version. This won’t fix the company.
They also need to drop the price on those yearly updates if they keep it up, a slightly higher poly count doesn’t justify paying full price all over again, year after year.
well there goes my plan to buy EA shares to make back the money from my game purchases by receiving dividends
You will never see a how to fix EA article. EA as a company has picked up such a massively negative image over the years that there isn’t a single person left on the consumer side that would even lift a finger to dig them out of the hole they’ve dug themselves.
@Mark Serrels – Two reasons your view seems wrong to me:
“No-one will try and fix EA.” – Huh? When it was announced SimCity would be online only thousands of vocal gamers like myself constantly tried to tell them it wasn’t what we wanted, and that if they don’t stop being so foolish it would result in a loss of our support. Add to that all the backlash we’ve given them on various games sites over SimCity being Online only, day 1 patches required to fix serious issues, paying for DLC that could be free or not bothered with at all, DRM, Origin being a poorly executed, unnecessary copy of Steam and the removal of games from Steam, Micro-transactions, rehashed yearly sequels at full price, their (no) refund policy,…and they never listened to a word we said.
“We’ll get angry at (Nintendo) for refusing to become more like EA.”
NEVER! Anyone who keeps up with this industry knows that EA is insidious, like Activision; It’s a company with more interest in profits and less interest in offering the consumer something of quality, why would we ever be angry at Nintendo for not being more like them? EA should know better than to churn out near identical sports games year after year at full price and still expect us to think their heart is in the right place, and as listed above in my first paragraph, that’s one of many problems we keep telling them about! They’re happy to run their name into the ground with all the things we’ve been vocal about wanting them not to do, they crush our memories of what gaming used to be before online became majorly integrated in games, with every new decision being misguided and all about profits or eliminating piracy (though they won’t admit that was the goal of Online only), while Nintendo tries to preserve what made them to start with; originality and quality, giving us products that we genuinely care for, time after time, games with great stories and innovative gameplay. EA can’t make those games, it acquire the companies that make those games, then rip the heart out to resell as online only DLC that needs a day one patch, and when they’re not doing that it’s remaking generic games with no originality on a yearly basis.
Thanks for reading.
Nintendo still continues to make quality games. Anyone who has played A Link Between Worlds, whether they liked the game or even like the genre at all, they can’t deny the sheer artistry of the work. They continue to pour their heart into their games, and to make great, fun games.
EA is a company with no soul left. They have been voted the worst company in America multiple times. They have destroyed beloved franchises, made blatant efforts to screw over their customers, and continued to shovel out the same worthless games year after year. Not only do people not care if they fail, a lot of people would be quite glad if they did fail.