Riccitiello Admits EA Missed The Wii Bus

Electronic Arts CEO John Riccitiello admits his company dropped the ball by focusing on the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 at the expense of the hugely popular Nintendo Wii.

In an interview with the San Jose Mercury News, Riccitiello said that while EA has historically been able to determine who will lead the market in each console cycle, this time around it picked the wrong horse. "We made the wrong call there [by not focusing on the Wii], which has made this transition harder than it would otherwise be," he said. "But now we're catching up, and I think we're fine. We've got some incredibly innovative Wii titles, incredibly innovative DS titles coming. And so I think that issue's sort of behind us."

He added that despite the increasing domination of the videogame market by consoles, EA has greater commitments than simply seeing an expanded base of consoles. "We've transcended them a little bit. We've got a big mobile business, a big PC business, a big direct to consumer business, increasing advertising business, microtransaction business, subscription business - all things that live outside the world of [console sales]," Riccitiello said.

Like many other industry figures, Riccitiello pointed out that even though Nintendo is far and away the industry leader in this console cycle, there is a "meaningful" market for the runners-up as well. "This cycle is like every other cycle before it: There's been a dominant player (in this case, the Wii)," he said. "Unusual in this cycle is there's a second and third place that is meaningful, against which we can build a profitable business. That's a good and positive thing."

via: MCV