EA’s boss thinks that a lot of people actually prefer playing games in 2D anyway.
EA CEO John Riccitiello says that 3D gaming isn’t making the publisher much money, and that it would much rather invest its resources elsewhere. He says that EA hasn’t seen people embracing 3D gaming or 3D TVs, leaving the publisher with little incentive to push the technology.
Speaking at an investors’ meeting, Riccitiello said that a lot of people found playing games in 3D to be unsatisfying compared to playing them in 2D. He also said that EA had seen much better growth in other sectors – namely that of social and online gaming – and was a lot more interested in investing in those areas rather than 3D technology.
“We’re not here trying to drive the market, we’re here to react to what consumers are looking for,” he said. “Right now we’re seeing better growth focusing on a different technology innovation … We’ve seen really high returns here, and very poor returns focusing on 3D. So our allocation of resources has been toward the new innovations that are growing more rapidly.”
Riccitiello’s comments seem rather timely, following the massive price drop for the 3DS that Nintendo announced yesterday. Of course, it’s still early days for 3D gaming, so EA may change its tune in the future.
Source: Gamasutra
