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EA: Wii U's lack of Madden, FIFA a 'rational' business decision
Nintendo's Wii U is struggling in sales and support. During an interview this week at E3 with Charlie Scibetta, Nintendo of America's head of corporate communications, we noted that the Wii U's lack of Madden this year puts it in the company of Sega's ill-fated Dreamcast. EA currently has no games in development for Wii U. "You'd have to ask EA about their future development plans. EA is a great partner of ours, they've had games on our platforms before. They want what all third parties want and what we want: for the install base to grow," said Scibetta. "We're confident that once some of these games come out that we have planned between now and the holiday and into 2014, that it will help drive the install base and when that happens the platforms will look more enticing to third parties." So, we asked Electronic Arts Labels President Frank Gibeau about what Nintendo can do to bring EA back to the Wii U.
Almost all DSiWare games available at 3DS eShop launch, transfer limits clarified
We know that Nintendo is planning "3D Classics" for the 3DS eShop -- retro games with 3D effects added. We also know that unaltered retro games will be available in the Virtual Console, and that DSiWare will be available as well when the service is launched in May. But what about downloadable 3DS games -- a "3DSWare" equivalent to the DSi's DSiWare? We may be waiting a while for that. Charlie Scibetta, Nintendo's senior director of corporate communications, told Joystiq that not only was Nintendo not ready to announce any downloadable 3DS games, there isn't even a name for that service at the moment. "We have Virtual Console games," Scibetta said. "Anything that's rendered in 3D, converted into 3D, is called 3D Classics, but we don't have any other terminology yet." He assured Joystiq that downloadable games would be made available "under the eShop banner." That the terminology is still up in the air suggests that this part of the plan has yet to be finalized -- or just that Nintendo isn't ready to talk about the finalized plan. The good news is that you'll have access to a lot of DSiWare when the eShop launches. Of the existing DSiWare lineup, "pretty much the whole thing" will be available right at launch. "There might be a few exceptions, but the majority of the games will come over." A few games are being left off the 3DS's eShop for undisclosed reasons. Scibetta also offered a bit of clarification about the limits on the DSiWare software transfer feature, also coming as part of that late-May update. "It's not the number of transferred games -- it would be the same game, the number of times you could transfer it from device to device," Scibetta said. "So if you build up a large category of DSiWare games, you won't be penalized. Just how many times you can move that same group of games, there'll be a limit on."
