14 DAY TRIAL // EA boss John Riccitiello recently revealed that, in order to improve sales of both its hardware and software, Nintendo should definitely consider a price cut for its Wii console in order to make a comeback in terms of profit.
Nintendo, even if it had an extremely profitable Black Friday, and will no doubt see lots of hardware and games sell well during the upcoming winter holidays, isn't as profitable as it once was.
Both the Wii home console and the DS handheld have been suffering a slow decline in sales, but Nintendo is adamant that things will improve in the future.
EA CEO John Riccitiello isn't so sure, and talked with IndustryGamers about a possible price cut for the Wii, which would help the console in front of serious competition from Microsoft or Sony.
"I would say they did exceptionally well in ‘07 and ‘08, started tapering in ‘09 and ‘10, and... I think if they were to price down to $99, they would explode."
Riccitiello then declared that the new motion detection peripherals for the Playstation 3 and Xbox 360, the PlayStation Move and Kinect, respectively, were serious competition for the Japanese console.
"I think they’ve now got competition, in the form of gesture-based gaming from Sony and Microsoft. If they were to find ways to promote third-party content better, as opposed to first-party content, and would hit pricing, I think the platform would see new life," he said.
The EA boss then discussed how Nintendo wasn't really helping third-party developers release quality games for the Wii, instead just relying on quality first-party ones developed in-house.
This is a contributing factor to the slow sales that are affecting the Wii, according to the EA executive.
"I think it’s a frustration for all third-party publishers, when a platform holder does less to promote third-party content. There’s often tension in a company between first- and third-party content."
Nintendo doesn't seem to care about what other companies think, and revealed that the Wii will keep its current price for quite some time in the future.