Monday, November 14, 2011

*Rumor* Wii U to use Origin for Digital Distribution?



This is coming from Wiiugo:


"We received a tip from an EA intern with some very interesting information pertaining to the Wii U’s online system. Our source, who wishes to remain anonymous, claims that her information comes from a network engineer whom she is friends with. As with all news from anonymous sources, it’s difficult to determine its authenticity. But what we received sounds plausible and even explains Peter Moore’s relentless excitement for the Wii U.
It’s no secret that EA are helping Nintendo develop the Wii U’s online service. It will allegedly offer voice- and video-chatting support, leaderboards, and detailed friend lists that tell you who’s online and what they’re playing. The service aims to offer greater flexibility to publishers than Xbox Live, and EA . From our source:
Many publishers are happy with Xbox Live’s features, but they aren’t happy with how strict Microsoft’s guidelines are.  Nintendo went with an open flexible approach with online because when Nintendo asked developers/publishers what they wanted in an online service, that was the number one thing they asked for.
But interestingly, EA are supposedly in talks with Nintendo to try and make Origin, their digital games distribution platform, a key element of Nintendo’s online strategy, too. EA would have the chance to bring Origin to the console space and win many new users while Nintendo see it “as an opportunity to rebuild relationships with Western gamers because they feel that only a massive western company such as EA nderstands what is needed to make an online service attractive to western gamers.”
According to our source, EA isn’t the only company looking into bringing its digital distribution platform to the Wii U – Valve, too, are interested in getting Steam onto it. But EA are “aggressively persuading Nintendo to go Origins exclusive with Wii U’s online so they can gain a competitive advantage over Steam.”
Link

If this is true, the Wii U could have a very exciting downloadable game scene that will work a lot better than Wii Ware. In my opinion Origin is not as good as Steam but it certainly is much better than what Nintendo has ever done in the past. Could this also mean that the Wii U may in fact have a decent sized hard drive available at launch? The wait for new info on Nintendo's next system is a painful process indeed. 

1 comment:

Travis Hendricks said...

I personally would love Origin or Steam to take over the digital downloadable back end of the Wii U. I have limited experience with Steam and basically none with Origin but I've heard good things about each.

The main thing I want though, no matter what the back end is, would be to have a persistent online environment with only one account code that connects to all games. Is that too much to ask?