EA, who are these games for?

TVGB: "EA scored a couple of big hits for the Wii this summer in EA Sports Active and Tiger Woods 10. Both were quality games and had clearly targeted consumers: EA Active at those who had WiiFit but were looking for a more advanced workout, and Tiger Woods 10 at golf enthusiasts and early adopters of Wii Motion Plus. At this point I had thought that EA had finally figured out how to make a quality, successful Wii game. But a battery of information about a recent release and a couple of upcoming releases on the Wii has me questioning what EA is trying to accomplish with these games, and more specifically, who exactly they are trying to sell them to."

[SpoonyRedMage]

Yup, it amazes me how EA can get so much right and so much at exactly the same time.

I'm looking forward to Need For Speed: Nitro anyway(and example of EA doing it right).

[EvilTwin]

EA truly screwed the pooch with this year's Madden. They took a chance, but Madden has a reputation as a sim, not an arcade-ish football game. They did GREAT last year with the call your shot option. Drawing up your own plays and slicing up the D was awesome. They just went too far from what makes Madden...well, Madden.

IMO, of course.

Extraction...I dunno. The original was not THAT big a hit. But we'll see. Extraction versus Shattered Memories this fall could be an indicator of what the market wants with these types of core games on Wii. I hope third-person action trumps a rail shooter, but that's just me.

Spoony -- I'm getting kind of hyped for NFS:Nitro, too. The first NFS at 60 fps is almost enough to sell me.

[Gr81]

Don't care much about Extraction. And EA has taken the Madden Series no where near serious on the Wii. Wii audience wants quality games. It is what we've become accustomed to with Nintendo's first party offerings. There is so much potential with Madden on Wii that its tragic EA has wasted half this generation shoe horning Wii controls into a PS2 madden experience. The Wii is capable of so much more. It isn't the visual style that is going to "sell" Wii's audience on Madden, it is the content. Look at Tiger 10.

I feel Grand Slam Tennis could have been a bigger hit had it nailed M+ Controls and axed the Visual style they went with. Bottom line is just make a good game. Need For Speed looks promising though. But the axing of online is just baffling. Especially since Mario Kart pulls it off so flawlessly.

The lesson for third parties is this; Customers are never to be taken for granted, or treated like retards.

[EvilTwin]

Yup. There's a reason first-party Nintendo titles sell well, and it isn't all name recognition (although that certainly helps). A good chunk of it is quality. If you buy Mario, Metroid or Zelda, you know you're getting a well put together game that should provide a bare minimum of 20 hours playing (I spent 70 on LoZ:TP).

EA put some good effort into TW10 on Wii (I don't think it's a stretch to say it's the best version released), and it sold well as a result. Imagine that -- spend the time to make a good game and put some marketing behind it, and it sells.

(I'm truly befuddled how everyone thinks it's the job of the console maker to push the marketing for every game. When a development studio chooses a publisher, they aren't doing it just so a logo can appear on the game's box art.)