EA: Nintendo Is Not, and Never Will Be 'Dead To Us'

Peter Moore responded to this statement on Twitter today, writing, "Don’t trust 'anonymous sources.' Nintendo's a great partner. They never have been, and never will be, 'dead' to EA."

The author of the CVG report, Rob Crossley, then tweeted back at Moore insisting the source "was an EA one," to which Moore replied, "I know where I, as the COO, and my company stands on this relationship, despite the comments of your anonymous source."

EA clarified that it is, in fact, continuing to make games for the system, although none have yet been released.

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Let's see Nintendo haters try to spin this now.

Figured this kind of response was in the works.

Of course it is; anonymous sources will say anything to get in the news. EA as a company has not actually come out and said that it will be dropping support for Wii U or Nintendo at all.

LoL...Peter Moore, Microsoft's moleman.

Sooooo where are the games then?

Apparently to be announced later. They did confirm they were working on Wii U projects last year, but also clarified that they were all unannounced, at least for now.

A Timeline for the Lazy (and Curious, Cantankerous, Spicy, or otherwise Apathetic)

November 18, 2012 -- The Wii U is released
January 23, 2014 -- EA lists a grand total of FOUR games for the Wii U on their official website

November 15, 2013 -- The Playstation 4 is released
January 23, 2014 -- EA lists a grand total of SEVEN games for the Playstation 4 on their official website

November 22, 2013 -- The Xbox One is released
January 23, 2014 -- EA lists a grand total of NINE games for the Xbox One on their official website

Quite interesting, and also a little discouraging. An extra year and averaging half the available titles in comparison to the competition. I think there's probably some validity to both statements we've heard recently regarding EA and the Wii U.

Tonights cast just got juicier :D

Damage control but I doubt that EA will support the wii u no matter what they say money talks.

If there's money in supporting it. I think developers are hesitating because of the Wii U's surprisingly (or as some might say, predictably) disappointing sales.

Dead To Us is probably a sequel to The Last of Us but for some reason its EA who's developing it

This is that diplomacy stuff I was talking about but the proof of the pudding is in the eating. They're not currently releasing anything at the moment.

They already said they stopped development to focus on Xbox One and PS4 last year, but that they then had Wii U games in development that are as of yet still unannounced and will be hitting the console soon.

I am not saying EA treats the Wii U the same as PS4 or Xbox One, not at all, but I am saying that they haven't ditched the console entirely, not yet anyway.

Sure, anything is possible. I wasn't trying to bust anyone's chops, I just see FIFA 13 and Madden 13 (noticeably absent are the current year's sports games), and it's hard not to imagine a world for the Wii U without traditional EA support.

How much that is due to performance of those games on the previous console I do not know, but I think it's worth considering (along with the current weak sales of the Wii U).

EA was the biggest and most vocal third party supporter on the Wii, actually. But on the Wii U, they ended up sabotaging themselves. The Wii U versions of Madden and FIFA were last generation versions, Mass Effect 3 was released without any DLC for full price right as other platforms got Mass Effect Trilogy, and the only game where they put in any effort, Need for Speed: Most Wanted, was the game that did end up selling.

Do you know how the Wii versions of EA's annual franchises did relative to the PS3 and 360 versions? Or if they were significantly profitable endeavors at all?

I don't really have any frame of knowledge to comment on those two questions.

The magic number is 4.2

Really badly, and I think they were, yes, but only just.

That's about what I had perceived anecdotally over the past console generation, which is why I mentioned it at all. Given how much worse the Wii U is doing purely in terms of units in homes, developing for the Wii U is likely not a profitable endeavor for EA.

Even though we'll probably never get official word from the horses mouth on an across the board halt in development for the Wii U from EA, I think we can reasonably conclude that the outlook is perhaps bleak.

Once again, there were mitigating circumstances.

I am positive EA will end up releasing more games on Wii U, especially ones where their licenses mandate that they do (such as Disney and FIFA).

Where are all the sheep that said that EA sucks? Do they still suck or naw?

EA still sucks. It's not just sheep who say so. America thinks so, they voted them as the worst company in America for two years straight.

LOL OP, EA has hated them since the 80's.

What's with so much Nintendo damage control lately? It's everywhere it seems.

Well, I want to see some games then.

@charizard1605: But that's not necessarily about the games. It's about the way the company conducts itself.

Games as well, though. Shit like BF4, SimCity, and FIFA 14 (all broken products rushed to the market), or games like Real Racing 3, and Plants vs Zombies 2 (exploitative and abusive with microtransactions) or Mass Effect 3 and Dragon Age II (disappointing games overall), all point to a bad and underwhelming games portfolio.

That all sell millions of dollars so i think it's more the company than games.

Justin Beiber sells millions of records too. Sales have nothing to do with quality at all.

EA tested the water and it was freezing. I can see the PR talk but I doubt the numbers EA saw will prompt them to port any games. I think the leak was legit. It's understandable why the numbers were rubbish. Even Nintendo is having issues with sales numbers across the wii u. It seems like a clusterfuk making games for the wii u and you would be wise not to bet money that EA is going to step back up to the plate.

Did you just forget your original point and the response you just made to the other guy?

The sales of the games prove that people vote for EA badly for everything OTHER than games. (outside of possibly Simcity,)

By releasing shovelware and putting a "13" on top of Fifa12 to pretend they released 13 on the Wii when it was really just 12 again?

@charizard1605: They haven't explicitly said so, but if they were going to ditch Wii U support, I don't expect they ever would. You don't just come out and say shit like that publicly- because the next Big N console could go gangbusters and sell in the hundreds of millions, and then Nintendo could very well just say, "Nope. Remember all that shit you were talkin' back in '14? Well ha ha, eh, fucker?"

So yeah, that may well be the internal outlook on the Wii U at EA, but they'd never cop to it.

Regardless, I'm hoping against hope that when Mercenaries 3 arrives(shut up- you all waited years for Battlefront 3, and it's finally coming out), that it has a 3DS game to go with it.

EA would be wasting time with multiplatform development on the Wii U, at the same time though it's also risky to work hard on a new IP nobody will buy. I say just keep it simple. Take the Hitz, Blitz, Slugfest, and Jams games, load them up in a single disc collection, update the rosters for the current seasons, make it more physical than ever before, and give that to the Wii U. Probably wouldn't take long. They could probably easily make Battlefield 2143 a Wii U exclusive, make a cheap downloadable MP game with a small handful of maps like was done for 1943. It should be easy because it's a pretty cookie cutter approach, something that people despise with other games but I think it'd be welcome for expediency with these titles.

EA is a fucking joke amongst the core gaming community, their venom should steer clear of nintendo. i mean, it's not like the next madden or nba live is going to save the wii-u.

I blame how they treated their sports games on the Wii, they went from mastering the good control scheme for the Wii, to changing the design to family-friendly cel-shading styles. They really messed up on their Wii versions of Madden and Fifa support was bad too. Its like they sabotage their Wii versions to support the 360 and PS3 version.

^This. I wonder how PES did on the Wii since that was a lot of fun on the Wii?

Do you honestly think Peter Moore would care what fanboys think of his company?

It's a wise decision to not burn any bridges even if that may be what they think internally.

While I hate EA, they are probably the best at making the the number beside the $ the highest and are keeping all options open.

Well, what game do you guys think they are making? I bet they give FIFA 12 another roster update and make some "family friendly" game that nobody buys despite EA's "solid effort".

I would have thought you would have at least said a sequel to Dead To Rights

Nintendo is still a major player, of course they want to say stuff publicly to keep up appearances because Nintendo makes them money. But the cold hard truth is they probably consider Nintendo last after pc, xbox, mobile devices, and playstation.

Yeah, if that sort of thing decided what platform would get EA games, they would pretty much be staying iOS and Android only, the entire gaming community hates them.

Doesn't make too much of a difference considering Nintendo fans have been vocal about not wanting any 3rd party multiplat and want only nintendo games (wich don't sell too well lately, meaning Nintendo fans don't know what they want)

I want third party multiplats on Nintendo consoles (in fact, I own some on Ninty's consoles from N64 to Wii; including handhelds with GB-to-DS), but I can deal without EA.

If I recall correctly, didn't they as a company announce that they weren't making anything at all for the Dreamcast at all back in the day?

look at charizards damage control.

Nintendo is not dead to EA.

So is that why they canceled Crisis 3 for WiiU and didn't even attempt to bring Dead Space 3 to WiiU or even bothered to Support Mass Effect 3?

who wants that !?