EA Confirms Major Wii Support 150
Electronic Arts has confirmed they are 100% committed to the Nintendo Wii, reports Gamasutra. The largest game publisher in the U.S. has revealed six games currently in production for the console, which is scheduled to launch sometime in the Fall. From the article: "The EA statement on the matter comments: 'Each title will remain true to the hallmarks of its franchise but is being designed to maximize the power of the Wii hardware and take full advantage of the uniqueness and innovation of its one-of-a-kind controller.'"
Re:Wii and PS3 Love At EA (Score:4, Interesting)
Personally the touchscreen on my DS doesn't seem like a big deal to me anymore, but that doesn't mean I like Trauma Center or Meteos any less, and neither game would be much fun without the touchscreen. Of course, your game developer friend isn't playing all the new games in the works for the Wii, as they haven't been released yet. I'm sure that swinging the controller around on the devkit demo does get old after a while.
You got piled on, but you're right (Score:3, Interesting)
EA is trying anyway. You're right, they could've just released new rosters and said the old controller was enough. They didn't just phone it in. If they actually get rebounding sorta right-ish in NBALive after so many years of painfully bad results, Heck will at least be a little cooler. Maybe not Hell...
EA was among the earliest 3rd-party developers to show major projects on the Wii, and from the start they were talking about Madden and how the controller would work. It's clear they've spent some thought on what a new controller might mean for their franchises.
And yeah, they are franchise games. Go figger, EA is known for sports titles, and they will continue to make titles for the major US sports (except baseball now) and some for the rest of the world. Yes, I would personally be very interested in a Rugby title similar to their existing games, but apparently that doesn't have enough market behind it.
Re:Great (Score:3, Interesting)
So why won't you be buying a Wii?
Re:Did Hell Freeze Over? (Score:4, Interesting)
Technically true, but who cares?
What we care about is the full system, from the output of the human brain back into the input to the game device. At that level, there can be large differences in button vs. stick vs. something else entirely. Plus, not all signals are created equally; "analog" signals can carry a lot more info than digital button presses.
Now, I don't know what EA's plans are, and I don't know exactly how accurate the Wiimote is. But, if the Wiimote is as accurate with the accelerometers as it should be, and if EA is going all out, they could set it up so that you actually make a throwing motion, with full control over direction and speed as quickly as you can make the motion. This would be a qualitative improvement over any existing control setup, which has no feasible way to extract this much information from the player in any way the player could hope to deliver it. There is going to be no other way to tap into our throwing circuits anywhere near as well, and those are extremely refined by Mother Nature.
To the game, it's just another input. To the human, it's anything but.
This is supposition. I think it's possible that the Wiimote will be able to handle this technically (this is actually just an accelerometer application, exact positioning would be irrelevant, so even if positioning is wonky there's no good reason this won't have a sensing accuracy far in excess of the signals your body can generate), but I would be somewhat surprised if EA implemented this, as it would be a lot harder than button translation. But they are talking the talk, so one can at least hope they are walking the walk.