EA’s exit from Wii U support triggered an industry wide exodus of third party support from the system- which is why it is always intriguing to see how they plan on supporting the Switch, Nintendo’s next system. According to them? They’re going to support Nintendo with a major game, and they will continue to partner with Nintendo.
“Nintendo has always been and will always be an very important partner in this industry,” EA COO Peter Moore said at the Credit Suisse 2016 Annual Technology Conference in Phoenix, Arizona (via DualShockers). They have some of the best first party development studios in the world, and some of the most valuable intellectual properties in the world. We have announced publicly that we got a partnership with them on their new platform, the Switch, we haven’t talked in detail on what’s that about. You can imagine, as you heard, that a major game will be distributed on that platform.
“We’re huge fans. We have a relationship that goes many decades back. They’ve had some difficult times as if recently obviously, but never, ever, ever discount Nintendo in this marketplace, and their ability to leverage their superb game development opportunities. Their intellectual properties, whether it’s Mario, whether it’s Zelda, whether it’s Metroid Prime, we could go on forever about what they can do… obviously Pokémon, we’ve seen more recently.
“We’re gonna watch with interest and you can rest assured that EA, just like every major publisher, is in regular conversations with Nintendo.”
It’s heartening to see Nintendo regaining some of the industry wide relevance that they had lost with the Wii U in 2016, with the triple showing of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, their mobile game efforts, and of course, Pokemon. Hopefully this momentum can be leveraged into the Switch going forward- and having someone like EA be a partner on the system will definitely be important to that system’s future.
