At E3 2011 then EA CEO John Riccitiello announced what he said would be an "unprecidented partnership" with Nintendo for Wii U but the relationship between the two companies has turned out very differently with EA COO Peter Moore commenting that Nintendo's console seems "out of sync with the future of EA" adding that it feels "like an offline experience right now."
EA currently has no games in development for Wii U and Frostbite 3 – which is used to power many of the company's upcoming key titles – is not presently compatible with the console.
"We were there with four games for them [at launch]," says Moore. "It's been a disappointment when you look at sell-through and, as a company, we have to be very judicious where we deploy our resources."
For EA, the Wii U's lack of an engaging multiplayer platform is a significant concern, particularly for sports games such as Madden.
"The lack of online engagement that we see on Wii U [is troubling]," Moore notes. "It's so integral to what we do. They're so small it's hard worth running the servers. It seems like a box that's out of sync with the future of EA – which is one that gives a real social feel to our games. The Wii U feels like an offline experience right now."
Among the forthcoming EA games to skip Wii U are FIFA 14, Dragon Age: Inquisition, Battlefield 4 and the company's Star Wars titles. All of those games run on Frostbite 3 except FIFA 14, EA has blamed poor sales of FIFA 13 for the decision not to sell its successor on the system.
An EA engineer has previously claimed that the Wii U is "crap", adding that Nintendo is "walking dead at this point".
Source: GamesIndustry.
