Recently, EA’s boss John Riccitiello came forward to voice some of his frustration with the lower-than-expected sales of EA games on Nintendo’s Wii. Citing Nintendo’s lack of support of third-party publishers to help push games, Riccitiello noted that EA’s games were some of the highest rated on the platform for the year. We can’t argue, as while Dead Space: Extraction (review forthcoming) was a relatively fantastic game to play, the sales were abysmal. Madden 10 on the Wii didn’t fair any better, and the NCAA and NHL licenses have disappeared from the Wii completely.
Whether it’s Nintendo’s lack of support or EA’s misunderstanding of the Wii audience, or any factor inbetween, remains to be seen as the clear reason why the publisher is up in arms. But there is a glimmer of hope, as EA has faired relatively well with Tiger 10 and its EA Active series. How can EA change its game design mechanic to create more unique experiences that may actually do well on the system? We take our lunch break and offer up some interesting game ideas for the publisher.
The Wii’s audience is a highly segregated one. On one side stand the Nintendo faithful who purchase any game Nintendo publishes. On the other are the new gamers, the casual market that includes our grandmothers and godfathers. In the middle is the quickly disappearing “core” gamer that Nintendo claims they still care for. Our solution? Target a little of each, using what EA already knows about Wii success.
Idea: Madden 2011 Active
The EA Sports Active series of exergaming is regarded as a success on most accounts. Combining a great use of non-waggle motion control and a design that anyone can understand, the “games” sell extremely well, especially to the female gamer. The Madden franchise, on the other hand, has been waning in sales. The opportunity here lies in the ability to sell an exergaming product to men wrapped in a sports game franchise.
Stay with me, I promise it’ll get good (I hope).
Start with the typical Madden football game: good play mechanic, seasons and franchises, online modes. Now, also include a training camp mode that uses an EA Active type of workout for those who may want to train (somewhat) like a real football player. Obstacle courses, catching passes, blocking, timed runs… all of these can be included to simulate NFL training sessions and workouts. As an added integration player-created characters can be used both in the training sessions and on the field. In other words, work out more often with the “Active” portion of the game and the characters on the field become better (and the user becomes healthier). A motion-controlled training mode that is sold as a real-world improving workout can offer something for the Wii owners that is unique and appealing.
The same can be done with other EA sports games: Train like an NBA player by being taught jumps and upper-body work in NBA LIVE Active then use that character in your season. Use Tiger Woods Active to train and improve your golf swing. The games may begin to appeal to more than just the core sports game fanatic. Heck, an EA Team Sports Active, using training methods for all major sports, could help sell more to that male demographic that eludes EA on the Wii.
Idea: EA Sports Collection
This is an EAsy solution. (See what I did there?) EA sports games may sell weakly on their own for the most part, but as we’ve seen with the Wii collections of games sometimes sell better. A Madden/NCAA football combo game may make for a more appealing software sale, as might an NBA/NCAA Basketball combo. While the amount of depth might need to be toned down slightly to fit in all of the sports on a disc, the value may be enough to get people to bite on a purchase, especially for their kids.
Idea: EA Sports Classics
The Wii and DS are ripe with reinvented franchises that utilize prettier visuals and play mechanics overlaid onto classic games, with a Boy and His Blob and Contra rebirth being two of the more recent ones. Why not do the same for classic EA sports franchises? An old-school playing Madden (overhead 3/4 view with simple controls) or NHL Hockey (the “Wayne Gretzky” scene from Swingers comes to mind) with cleaner graphics and updated rosters might just be enough to capture that old-school gamer’s attention.
Combo discs would work here as well, perhaps with some sort of “city sports” mode that allows players to participate in all of their hometown’s professional sports teams & leagues year-round. Live in Philadelphia? You could take the Flyers, Sixers and Eagles through their seasons, picking up the Phillies for the summer but still engaging in the NFL draft and NBA playoffs.
Idea: New Franchises
The downfall of Dead Space: Extraction wasn’t that it was an on-rails game, or that it was a mature game on the Wii, but that it was an on-rails game from a popular HD franchise on the Wii. Resident Evil can pull off the feat only because of its huge following. EA needs to be pushing brand-spanking new IPs on the Wii, that can follow later onto the HD big brothers. Think of Mirror’s Edge starting on the Wii and taking advantage of the motion control (heck, their doing it for the iPhone). A year later the “proper” ME pops up on the 360 and PS3. It’s already happening with games like No More Heroes, which has built a strong following (even though sales were less than stellar), graduating to the HD systems next year.
Using the Wii as a test bed for new games bodes well for company that is only willing to spend the big bucks on established franchises anyways. Perhaps instead of calling it “Dead Space:Extraction” it should have been titled “Evil Dead Monster Shooter in Space, with No Relation to Other Games”.
Idea: Demos on Disc
Squeenix does this all the time: Place a demo for an upcoming colossal game on the disc for a lesser-known game and sell extra copies just because of it. It worked with Final Fantasy VII (and every Final Fantasy game since) and Konami has done similar with games like ZOE and Metal Gear. Place a demo on Madden for FIFA and NBA Live. Place a demo for EA Active on Boom Blox Bash Party. Place a demo for Spore Hero on MySims Agents. Nintendo hasn’t been all that friendly towards downloadable demos on the Wii, only now just starting the practice for WiiWare. by including these on disc there may be an opportunity to kill a couple birds with one WiiMote.
So there you have it. A few concepts that EA can have for free to help boost their Wii sales. Any other ideas? Perhaps some that are non-sports related?
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