EA says it made a mistake by not paying more attention to Wii

Mountain View (CA) - Electronic Arts CEO John Riccitiello admitted that the company should have spent more time working on the Wii instead of focusing on the PS3 and Xbox 360.

At an investor meeting, Riccitello reportedly said, "One of the biggest challenges, of course, was that not a lot of people anticipated the success of Nintendo that they’ve shown with their wand controller and their Wii."

EA recently ended its 2007 fiscal year, calling it the "toughest year in the company’s history." Riccitello said the company jumped on the "wrong horse" by devoting most of its time on the Xbox 360 and the Playstation 3, which competed with the Wii for launch sales last year.

EA’s list of Wii launch titles was short, consisting of sports game ports Madden NFL 07 and Need For Speed Carbon. After Nintendo’s console became such a phenomenon, the publisher quickly purchased partner company Headgate Studios to develop exclusively for the Wii.

Now EA has a strong devotion to the Wii and has been confirmed as the first third-party publisher to tap into the Wii’s full online gaming platform.

EA is currently working on two known exclusives for the Wii - an unnamed puzzle game under the direction of Steven Spielberg, and a collection of mini-games called EA Playground.