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Sony's Harrison: You Can't Get Wii's Whole Audience
by Christian Nutt

3 comments

February 22, 2008

Sony's Harrison: You Can't Get Wii's Whole Audience

At the "Lunch with the Luminaries" luncheon at GDC this year, Sony's president of worldwide studios Phil Harrison told EA Blueprint's Neil Young that making Wii games may not be as viable as third-party publishers think.

Due to competition with Nintendo's unstoppable games, according to Harrison, who was speaking at the invite-only press lunch: "Your addressable market is only 40% of the installed base."

Young countered that EA's recent successful Wii title Smarty Pants, which had its gestation in meetings at the last GDC less than a year ago with developers Planet Moon, was "very easy to build very quickly."

The EA executive suggested that it was "...fundamentally much more fun... almost like Xbox Live Arcade [development] to some degree" - he feels that's where the Wii's strength lies.

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Comments

Anonymous

21 Feb 2008 at 10:46 pm PST

Someone should remind Mr. Harrison that 40% of the Wii's installed base is close to the same number as the entire Playstation 3's installed base.

Anonymous

22 Feb 2008 at 12:16 am PST

But bear in mind that there are a LOT more products fighting over that Wii 40% than there are fighting over the PS3 space.

Sterling Reames

22 Feb 2008 at 5:08 am PST

The DS has gone through all of the same phases that the Wii has been experiencing. I think we'll start seeing more 3rd party quality titles (such as Ubisoft's No More Heroes) in the near future. It's only a matter of time.