EA: The Market is Below 40 Million Wiis
Frustration from publisher at platform's cash-producing ability
The SeekingAlpha transcript (bless them) of EA's second financial quarter conference call has revealed the frustration of both EA CEO John S Riccitiello and COO, John Schappert, when it comes to making money from the Wii. It also indicates that EA believes that the market for western third-parties is under 40million units.
First up, Riccitiello tells analysts and shareholders, "In both Europe and North America, EA was the number one overall publisher in the quarter -- number one on the PS3, Xbox 360, and PC, and number two to Nintendo on the Wii", sounds good but...
John Schappert also contributes with,"While we have hit our share goal for the Wii business, revenue is well below expectations due to underperformance of the Wii platform. "
And Riccitiello finally snaps, blaming Nintendo for EA's lack of money making from the platform.
"To be honest with you", never a good way to start, "I think the Wii platform has been a little weaker than we had certainly anticipated. And there is no lack of frustration to be doing that at precisely the time where we have the strongest third-party share.
"I think driving revenues up on that platform from where we already are, which is up substantially from where we were a year ago, we are reaching out to Nintendo to find ways to partner to push third-party software harder.
"I frankly think they need more beats in the year than they get out of a first-party slate to be able to have the Wii software platform perform as well as they would like and we are building the products that are I think the most highly rated on the platform and at this point in time, generating the most revenue of any third party platform.
I would point out, by the way, the 50 million number of course includes Asia or Japan and I don’t think any of the western companies are likely to participate much at all on the Wii platform in Japan, so the addressable market we see is just a little bit below 40 million but that is still an important opportunity."
We'll stay tuned for more Electronic Arts and Nintendo Wii to and fro.
Source: SeekingAlpha
First up, Riccitiello tells analysts and shareholders, "In both Europe and North America, EA was the number one overall publisher in the quarter -- number one on the PS3, Xbox 360, and PC, and number two to Nintendo on the Wii", sounds good but...
John Schappert also contributes with,"While we have hit our share goal for the Wii business, revenue is well below expectations due to underperformance of the Wii platform. "
And Riccitiello finally snaps, blaming Nintendo for EA's lack of money making from the platform.
"To be honest with you", never a good way to start, "I think the Wii platform has been a little weaker than we had certainly anticipated. And there is no lack of frustration to be doing that at precisely the time where we have the strongest third-party share.
"I think driving revenues up on that platform from where we already are, which is up substantially from where we were a year ago, we are reaching out to Nintendo to find ways to partner to push third-party software harder.
"I frankly think they need more beats in the year than they get out of a first-party slate to be able to have the Wii software platform perform as well as they would like and we are building the products that are I think the most highly rated on the platform and at this point in time, generating the most revenue of any third party platform.
I would point out, by the way, the 50 million number of course includes Asia or Japan and I don’t think any of the western companies are likely to participate much at all on the Wii platform in Japan, so the addressable market we see is just a little bit below 40 million but that is still an important opportunity."
We'll stay tuned for more Electronic Arts and Nintendo Wii to and fro.
Source: SeekingAlpha
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