EA on the whole as a company has been very mouthy about the Wii U lately, yesterday announcing that the Frostbite 3 engine that powers 15 of its upcoming games is compatible with the Wii U, they just don’t want to spend the time to make sure it runs flawlessly on the system. Now, EA Sports boss Andrew Wilson decided to throw his hat into the ring, stating the Wii U install base is much too small to properly develop titles for at the moment.
“I build for a userbase. I made games on Facebook because I thought people were there that wanted to play them. Then it became apparent to me that either I had the wrong game or they weren’t there. We had a strong offering on Wii U at launch. The platform hasn’t had the take-up. Our games hasn’t had the take-up we’d have liked. So at this moment we are not focused there.”
It’s interesting to note that for EA it’s all about the install base and never once has an executive said, “We’ve supported Nintendo for years and will continue to do so as they work to build their growing install base.” You know, like Ubisoft did. It’ll be interesting to see the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One launch numbers and whether or not EA executives and figureheads are pleased with them when the consoles release this fall.
