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Peter Moore - Part Two

The EA Sports president on accessibility of brand, Nintendo's marketing spend and communicating with consumers

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Feature by Phil Elliott Contributor
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Following on from the first part of this interview with Peter Moore, published last week, the EA Sports president here talks about the accessibility of the brand, the company's relationship with Nintendo over Wii Motion Plus, and how the publisher's consumer communication has changed in the past 18 months.

GamesIndustry.biz At last year's E3 press conference you demonstrated the All-Play mode in Tiger Woods for the Wii - what's been the feedback from that mode?
Peter Moore

Oh, they love it - it allows people, all people, to play the game against people that are far better. It gradually gets you up to speed, and I find myself then not using that mode once you get more comfortable. But it's a great way of getting into games, and you see it across all of our Wii games. Think of it as making games more approachable.

GamesIndustry.biz You've said in the past that EA Sports has been a bit hardcore, that you wanted to soften it a little - if All-Play has helped that process, have you noticed an increase in your market share on the Wii?
Peter Moore

We've made progress, particularly with Tiger on the Wii. Our core franchises, FIFA and Madden, we made progress on last year. We're very excited about Wii Motion Plus, with Tennis and Tiger - because we think it makes the games that much better, because the timing couldn't be better coming out with Motion Plus, and because Nintendo's working with us to bundle Motion Plus with both of our games.

From that element of it we're very bullish about our presence on the Wii. EA Sports Active could be one of the big hits of the Spring - more than a game, more than a franchise, it's a brand new platform fro Electronic Arts and EA Sports that doesn't cannibalise one consumer. It's talking to a very unique and different consumer - a woman - and bringing our brands to places that previously, two years ago, we wouldn't have dreamt of going to.

It's a fascinating experiment, it makes us nervous and uncomfortable as heck, but we love it. It's just so different to what we do, and all of us are excited about it. It's been a tough 12-15 months getting this thing right, doing the engineering on the strap and getting that right, working with Nintendo - who have been a great partner - I'm as excited about that as I've been about any game in a long time.

GamesIndustry.biz Nintendo's come in for stick in the past for making it tough for third parties - given the support they've offered you with Wii Motion Plus, does that tell you they're serious about bringing third parties in more?
Peter Moore

Well I think the emphasis is on the third parties to crack the code on the Wii, and there are some games that have done well from third parties, and figure out what we need to do when we're playing on the Wii to make that game successful. Nintendo clearly has it figured out - they're the platform holders, so you've think they would.

But at the same time, it's not rocket science, and we in the publishing community have got to go and figure that out. I think we've done it with Tennis and Tiger, EA Sports Active really feels like it's going to be a success, and the unique way that we're utilising the Wii Remote is going to be the secret source to that.

But you can't blame Nintendo because third party publishers have yet, in real mass, to find success on the platform. They get the same dev kits as everybody else, and it's our job to figure it out.

GamesIndustry.biz Doesn't it also come down to marketing spend? Nintendo plays by its own rules when it comes to that side of things.
Peter Moore

Nintendo markets its own platform.