An EA Senior Software Engineer Slams Nintendo and the Wii U, Says Origin Isn't Important

[Shawn Zipay]

Bob Summerwill is a Senior Software Engineer and Architect working at Electronic Arts. Sure, EA has already said they won't be making any new Wii U titles in the foreseeable future, but things went a bit further than that today.

Taking to Twitter to respond to the recent report that EA was not creating new Wii U games, Summerwill kind of let loose about how he really felt concerning the Wii U platform and Nintendo in general.

Including the above image from Summerwill's Twitter, he also had a few more choice things to say about Nintendo and even EA's own Origin platform.

One more :-). Nintendo platforms have always been very poor revenue-wise for third parties. Only Mario and Zelda make money.

Nintendo are still operating like it's 1990. They should have "done a Sega" and offered Mario/Zelda as PS4/Durango exclusives.

It is an utterly intentional decision to focus our resources on markets which actually matter ... like mobile, and Gen4.

I think we tried to buy Steam and Valve. No, so had to make our own. It (Origin) should be way better, though, I agree.

The PC market is a tiny percentage of our revenue. Origin really isn't very important. Identity is, though.

Well then. Hopefully EA isn't too hard on him come Monday because this guy was merely saying what we're all thinking (or have already been saying for a while now).

[CptainCrunch]

He said what I have said and typed

But yeah, I hope he is a very important person at EA, otherwise he may be walking dead himself.

[Shawn Zipay]

He removed his tweets. That's beyond lame. Any time someone has the balls to speak up about anything, the vice tightens just a bit more and they try to remove all traces of them having said anything.

[K-16]

I saw you tweet about it on your personal Twitter. I was wondering if you were going to make a newspost about it, and now I know. I didn't know about the Origin tweets though (I was cross-referencing with a different website while waiting to see your/TGN's article). I do agree with him that the Wii U's Google Street View feels rather gimmicky, and I believe more R&D focus should have been on actual gaming related software instead. I'm assuming that tweet was also removed. I am interested to see the sales statistics behind Nintendo's third-party titles though, and see where the declining trend is coming from. Did it start at GameCube or Nintendo Wii or 3DS or some other console?

[Anarchy1]

Bob Whateverhisname is for CEO!

[papasmurf128]

They could have kept all the EA games on Steam and still had an identity. Instead, they decided not to remove their heads up their asses and kept being so arrogant while trying to make sure you didn't forget who published the game.

[CptainCrunch]

Did it start at GameCube or Nintendo Wii or 3DS or some other console?

This is just my opinion, but the Wii was a huge success and really pulled Nintendo up. Then they just sat their. I feel they dropped with the GameCube and came back with the Wii and the ideas and novelty of the Wii has been duplicated in both the Xbox and Playstation.

I don't know though with the rest of the world. Its obvious in the US that things are not looking well with the Wii U, but I think it's #1 in Japan and other Asian countries.

[K-16]

papasmurf128: If EA's games were on Steam, then it would've given us less of an incentive to use Origin. Plus EA giving up a 30% cut would give their Board of Directors heart attacks (assuming the other distribution channels they use ask for a lesser cut, or aren't threats to Origin in the first place). Honestly, I think the only way EA would even consider using Steam for their high-performance titles is if Origin gets completely defeated, or if VALVe puts their titles on digital distribution through Origin as an (insane) act in good faith (no, EA's offer to send you boxed copies of VALVe titles doesn't count).

CptainCrunch: That could be the case according to Emily Rogers' analytical article on EA vs. Nintendo. I'm having difficulty understanding the charts, but if I'm reading them correctly, the net revenue of EA's games on the Wii went from $302 million for the calendar year of 2008 to $625 million for 2009 (this is assuming the second chart is also talking about worldwide net revenue in software). However, just as how the Wii's share of the market begins to decline during 2010, EA's software revenue has plumetted by over half (Ms. Rogers did not mention The Godfather II was developed long before Dead Space Extraction though, so keep that in mind). Could this be the period of time where the ideas and novelty of the Wii were duplicated in both the Xbox and Playstation?

Whatever success the Wii had for Nintendo, it was apparently only temporary in terms of the market share as a whole. And according to EA, they share the same observations as you regarding Japan's market share versus North American market share, but in regards to the Wii U this time. Did the decline really start four years into the Nintendo Wii? I still want to see third-party title statistics and speculate whether or not EA is the only one in this decline.