Nintendo Wii As The Shallow End Of The Pool
"It's like how swimming pools have a deep end and a shallow end. EA Sports has really only built a swimming pool with a deep end. It's intimidating for a lot of people to jump right in the deep end. With All-Play, we're building a shallow end." - EA's Peter Moore
My initial knee-jerk reaction to Moore's comment was to lump it in with every other baseless slandering of the Nintendo Wii. Then, after recoiling and rereading, the EA All-Play concept makes perfect sense. Part of the joy in playing Wii Sports, WarioWare and Mario Party 8 is the inclusiveness of the titles--The "shallow end," essentially, because they all require minimal gaming expertise to enjoy.
Where EA Sports will struggle in this prospect is in ensuring that they don't inadvertently belittle their fan base by producing alternative ("cutified") games to justify their new division. So much of their initiative doesn't even really seem to require an All-Play line of titles. Why not design reduced control schemes, or scaled game play environments whereby gamers can adjust the intensity of the micromanagement system?
Oh, wait. I think I just answered my question. Why design a robust, tiered single title when you can produce the same/similar game multiple times over for individual target markets?
Peter Moore talks about Wii, and the shallow end of the pool [GoNintendo]
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Posted to Video Games on 7 May 2008
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