Analyst Unsure About Origin and Wii U Digital Fit

Michael Pachter, who is an analyst watching the video game industry for the firm Wedbush Morgan, has said that he is unsure whether the Origin digital distribution service from Electronic Arts is a good fit for the upcoming Nintendo Wii U home console.

Speaking to IndustryGamers about the rumors which link Electronic Arts with Nintendo as digital provider for the Wii U home console the analyst said, “I'm sure that if Nintendo has an online strategy, EA would be happy to be part of it.”

He added, “It's a bit early to know if there will be any downloads offered on the Wii U at launch, but ultimately, it's pretty clear that Nintendo has to offer something in the way of online game play, a games marketplace, etc. to compete with the current generation consoles. I'm not sure that Origin does much more than permit downloads, but it's a start.”

Earlier during the month of November rumors surfaced, quoting a source inside publisher Electronic Arts, that Origin will be used to power all digital distribution on the Wii U because Nintendo does not have the experience needed to create such a system from scratch.

It was also reported that Valve, with its Steam service, was also in talks with Nintendo but that the Japanese company was more interested in the EA system because it would bring with it a bigger number of first party games.

Neither of the companies has offered any official comment on the rumors.

The Wii U will offer roughly the same processing power as the Xbox 360 and the PlayStation 3 and will come complete with a new controller, which includes a touch screen as well as motion tracking.

So far both Sony and Microsoft have been unwilling to open up their home console to digital distribution, with most games still being only distributed on game disks.

If Nintendo makes it’s platform download friendly it might translate into a sales advantage over its rivals.