Have a killer 2007 year as a game maker, subjectively dethrone Electronics Arts as the top video game publisher. GameDaily has the story:

CMP’s Game Developer magazine has released its fifth annual “Top 20 Publishers” report, revealing that for the first time ever Electronic Arts has lost its crown. CMP’s Gamasutra states that, “Nintendo prevailed due to top marks for its game publishing in the reputation survey, alongside competitive revenue and average review score marks.”

Thanks, John!

EA’s WWII, FPS series has had its ups and downs. The Medal of Honor glory days were right at the start of the franchise when Allied Assault and Frontline beach landed to PCs and consoles. What made Medal of Honor so great was the feel of exploration, music, and flowing storyline. The game made you feel as though you were actually contributing to the war effort. EA’s direct connection with head WWII historians, soldiers, and weapons gave Medal of Honor a realistic, fresh take on World War 2 games.

The newest addition to the franchise is the upcoming title, Medal of Honor Heroes 2. the game was first revealed by Reggie at the Nintendo E3 2007 conference. Details were extremely scarce and the early video lasted less than fifteen seconds. Since E3, info about the game has been coming in almost every week. I’ve scoured the net to bring you a preview of what we can expect from MoH Heroes 2.

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Several small snippets of news filtered out of the Leipzig Games Convention this past week. One of those snippets could alter the way we think gaming. The highly anticipated sim game, Spore, will be developed for the Wii. Spore, a high budget project deals with an epic journey that takes you from the origin and evolution of life through the development of civilization and technology and eventually all the way into the deepest reaches of outer space.

The Wii version was confirmed in a private meeting by Maxis executive, Patrick Buechener. He went on to confirm that Spore will also be developed for the Xbox 360, and PS3 though all three console versions will be launched sometime after the release of the PC and DS versions. This news comes months after the famed Sims creator, Will Wright, expressed great interest in the Wii format. Expect to boot up Spore Q4 of 2008.

Source

EA is apparently throwing us all a curve this morning, given the fact that executives only recently divided up the company and created a dedicated “casual games” division.

GamePro reports…

Several sources are reporting that an Electronic Arts representative has confirmed that its Xbox 360 games take priority over other systems as multi-platform titles near completion.

The representative allegedly added that EA regularly shifts its workforce to concentrate on getting Xbox 360 versions shipped first due to the consoles larger user base when compared to the PS3 and Wii.

Bwah?! It’s not biased in the least to say that EA is brain dead if they think they can ignore all the Wii owners out there today. It’s a number that will soon be more than the purported “larger user base” of the Xbox 360. For all intents and purposes the number is essentially equal already.

Part of me thinks this was lost in translation. What I think EA really said is it will continue to focus on Xbox 360 first, and PS3 second — for a variety of money-related reasons.

Makes me wonder if GamePro’s “several sources” were in fact Xbox fanboys on the Major Nelson official forums.

I’m seeing scattered reports from Joystiq, GoNintendo and elsewhere that say the online play in Madden ‘08 for Wii is, in a word, broken.

EA (via GoNintendo):

“Now that Madden NFL 08 is available, the development team at EA is doing some tweaking to make sure our online experience is as smooth as possible. Since there is currently a high volume of people playing online, this is the best time for us to monitor and maximize the experience. As updates are taking place over the next 24 hours, some fans may experience an interruption in online play. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause and thank you for your patience as we make the necessary updates.”

What’s the word, Infendo? I didn’t pick this one up (’07 is good enough for me right now), but for those of you who have, what’s going on?

Whoops!

“Our stock hasn’t moved as much as we’d like,” EA CEO John Riccitello told one investor during a Q&A. He admitted that EA was on the “wrong horse” by concentrating mainly on the PS3 and Xbox 360 while throwing less resources towards the Wii during the console transition.

But remember, EA had a big restructuring effort last month, so they’re already in front of this issue. The power of the purse and EA Wii Family Controls FTW!

The video games industry is now changing broadly at a breakneck pace, and no where are the effects of this phenomenon demonstrated more perfectly that with the executives at EA.

Ever since EA had its hat handed to it following the successful launch of the Wii back in November (and the subsequent holiday season) by the likes of Ubisoft and others, its executives have come out in full force to show how their company is prepared to change with the times. (more…)

I’m not about to say Nintendo single-handedly bested the largest video game software company in the world and knocked it on its ass with a waggle wand and the gas-sipping Honda Civic of game consoles — but they played a HUGE part in today’s restructuring news. (more…)

According to an EA press release, Ronaldinho will be bicycle kicking his way onto various video game systems this fall with some exclusive content for the Wii. In addition to an exclusive Mii character of the soccer/football star, the game will also include a mode called “Footii Party” that features party games called Table Football and Shoot Off.

Ronaldinho commented on the character, “My character looks like he enjoys playing football and shares my passion for the game. This is important to me.”

If anything is extremely exciting about this for me, it’s the inclusion of an exclusive Wii foosball game. The one thing the press release didn’t mention was online play, but that goes for all systems and not just Wii or DS.

Now if only they had a Bicycle Kick Forever mini-game, Jack would finally be happy.

More EA news this morning, and it seems today they’re no longer threatening to port their entire catalogue to the Wii.

Electronic Arts worldwide studios COO John Schappert:

You’re not going to see every franchise taken to the Wii. Rather than bring the entire portfolio of titles, some of which won’t translate well, we’re taking those dollars and making original software.

Of the Miis he said, “We like the Miis. It’s a discussion that has to happen with Nintendo.” (I imagine, as per the usual protocols, Nintendo is still keeping its Miis close to the vest, and is being very reluctant about who gets access to them.)

First of all, thank the maker EA isn’t going to port all their schlock over to the Wii. Six months ago I’m sure that’s what the entry under their “business plan for Wii development” said, but after they got their hats handed to them by Ubisoft I’m sure it changed to what we’re seeing today. Regardless, this news coupled with today’s other EA “casual games division” news, seems to reflect a slow change at the software behemoth. My personal hope? That those “extra dollars” go into developing some cool adventure games, among other things.

Game Wad is reporting that the following features will be included in Madden 08 for Wii when it’s released on August 14:

• Real-time ESPN ticker updates
• Online tournaments
• Worldwide quickplay multiplayer matches
• Promised roster updates not just for the 2008 season, but 2009 as well
• Mini-game party mode, with 22 mini-games
• Miis are used in minigames

To echo the sentiments of Eddie Inzauto, “That sure is a lot of online stuff for the Wii.” Indeed. Looking like an online blowout for Wii come this fall. Patience web fans. Patience.

EA has unveiled a new game EA Playground – “a sports game compendium including many playground style games and already compared to Nintendo pack-in title Wii Sports.” IGN has the first preview of the game. Here’s hoping this one delivers…

Key points from Kaufman Bros. analyst Todd Mitchell’s recent note to clients:

[W]e are getting tired of what we believe is irrational exuberance about the Wii. Yes, it is popular, and yes, it is taking share, but one investor recently told us how he thought it would revolutionize the way Americans exercise…

As we highlighted in our Video Game Publishers: Valuation and Technical Analysis, published on 4/9/07, we are not sure the publishers will benefit from the Wii. Did the Wii really enlarge the market or did it just further segment it to Nintendo’s (NTDOY.PK) advantage? Most likely it is a little of both, so we feel the real questions is, did it enlarge the market by more than the amount of share Nintendo was able to take from the other publishers by dominating sales on the popular platform?

I dunno Toddy, I’ve seen a lot of elderly people and female gamers who would disagree with your point about expanding the market. And just in my immediate group of friends alone I can say that the Wii is the first console many of us have bought in roughly 10 years.

And the publishers that don’t make money on the Wii really only have themselves to blame. The install base is there (it grows by the hundreds of thousands month over month); the hardware is readily accessible given its simplicity; developers can table the exorbitant costs associated with making a 1080p game and focus entirely on game play; and the system is outselling the “industry leader” Sony by leaps and bounds. If third party players like EA can’t figure out the Wii, then there are plenty of other publishers out there who view the system as a fresh, new challenge that can.

Again, I say people like Mitchell can’t understand the success of something like the Wii — and therefore dismiss its success as a flash in the pan — because it is so disruptive and against the norm.

Games Radar has a feature today on Nintendo’s seven deadly sins (or mistakes). It’s almost as hot as Blake’s new Infendo header. Almost.

The feature is a nostalgic walk through of the absolute worst of Nintendo’s storied history. The Virtual Boy; strong arming third parties to the point that the U.S. government had to get involved; all but a handful of games on the Nintendo 64; and the now infamous backstabbing that Nintendo did to Sony over a “new” technology called CD-ROMs. You know the result of that video game history debacle: the PlayStation. “Nintendo effectively created its own worst enemy,” says Games Radar features writer Brett Elston. And he’s right. Mostly.

All those things I mentioned above, they all happened and they’re an embarrassment. Especially for a Japanese company. There’s no honor in slapping a company across the face the day after you sign a huge console deal with them. Even if it was Sony (I kid Phil Harrison, honestly). Absolute power corrupts absolutely and Nintendo was a poster child for that cliche.

But placing the Wii as #7 in this list is just a foolish way to garner page views.

Can the same magic that made the DS an international phenomenon happen with a console? Nintendo’s betting on it. Betting it all, really. Because what do you do next? Five years from now, when the PS4 and NextBox show up, they’re going to jump in hardware power again. And then Nintendo’s left with a machine that looks two generations old instead of one. The motion controls, now considered somewhere in between “the best damn thing that’s ever happened in the world” to “gimmicky stupid childish nonsense,” will be super played out and exploited. Unless there’s some other gameplay innovation on the horizon, Wii could be viewed as a fad, susceptible to the same fickle emotions that killed snap bracelets, pet rocks and Sega. And if Nintendo bites the bullet and gives the machine a visual kick in the pants, well there goes its whole mantra that graphics don’t matter. There’s just enough steam with this idea to last one generation, and none after that. Today, the Wii is insanely popular with almost every audience. But if this wave of good vibes ever ends, Nintendo’s gonna be stranded.

So true! And “if” this atmosphere thing covering our planet ever ends, we all gonna die.

It’s a good thing we established this is a Games Radar column, because a lot of what I’m seeing here is baseless hyperbole and opinion based on assumption. A PS4? Says who? A visual kick in the pants would be hypocritical if it was for a completely new system four years down the line? How so? Last I checked, every Nintendo system was different from the last, and no one cried foul on that. And if the Wii really takes off, and I mean like the DS has, then who’s to say Microsoft makes an even more powerful system next time around? Why would they or Sony waste their money when the Wii/DS model was so wildly successful?

What this column is, really, is another example of someone or some company that has no clue how to respond to Nintendo’s new chosen path. Even if PS4 hits store shelves in five years, do you really think Nintendo cares? Do you think its customers — and I’m talking the people having a blast right now with dated technology — will care? I’m going to throw Brett Elston a bone on this one, and assume (*gasp!*) that this colum was written before Blake’s Ubisoft/EA post yesterday. You know, the one where EA said it missed out on millions of dollars because it was too slow to act on Wii development? The one where Ubisoft made an additional $405 million because of the Wii? The quality of some of these games be damned for now, because money talks, and developers are shifting resources to confirm that.

Even the six other mistakes listed in the article are just a history lesson of how the gaming industry WAS, not how it is GOING TO BE if Nintendo’s strategy with the Wii takes hold in a year or two. The Virtual Boy? CD-ROMs? Hiroshi Yamauchi? Are you kidding me? These are the skeletons in Nintendo’s closet, to be sure, but if you as a gaming journalist cannot see that the past 2-3 years have been a major restructuring and about face at Nintendo you need to start looking for work. Like with Sony’s PlayStation marketing department.

In many ways, the Wii launch has been MORE successful than the DS, and some people are STILL calling it a gimmick. For someone who wrote a fairly detailed history lesson on Nintendo’s foibles and repeating its mistakes, Mr. Elston himself seems incapable of reviewing just the past two years. Unfortunately for columnists like this, they’re wrong, and like EA, they’re going to lose unless they start thinking differently. I think some turtleneck wearing guy named Steve told me that once. I wonder what happened to him.

[Inspired by roo_303]

N-philes says that movie magician Steven Spielberg, Command & Conquer creator Louis Castle, and EA are making a new Wii game. EA’s Neil Young had this to say about it:

“What I can tell you is what you’d expect, sort of, from a Steven Spielberg production,” Young said. “Steven’s stories are intimate stories that take place around huge, world-changing events… sort of, big stories shown through the eyes of a small group.”

That sounds great. Something with a similar tone to War Of The Worlds would be pretty engaging.

[UPDATE] More info about this arrangement can be found here at GameDaily.

Think they can pull off a good game?