EA and Valve battling for Wii U online exclusivity?

It’s perhaps one of the more far-fetched games rumours you’ll read today, but there’s no denying it’s a delicious one.

Blog WiiUGo, which has before leaked accurate information, reckons that publishers EA and Valve are currently engaged in a fierce bidding war to secure exclusive rights to Nintendo’s online service for Wii U.

EA are supposedly already in talks with Nintendo to use it’s new digital sales and gaming portal Origin as the exclusive provider of services for the console.

For Nintendo, it’s a chance to improve relations with the Western consumer. It would modernise its somewhat dated online offering in an instant.

And for EA, the idea of getting Origin into the console space is understandably appealing. In the site’s words, EA are aggressively persuading Nintendo to go Origins exclusive with Wii U’s online so they can gain a competitive advantage over Steam”.

Yes, Steam. Whose owning company Valve is, supposedly, also trying to persuade Nintendo to shun Origin in favour of a Steam-powered online Wii U service.

On the one hand it’s hard to imagine a platform holder handing over the keys to its digital space to another. Both Xbox Live and PlayStation Network have proved very lucrative for Microsoft and Sony.

But it’s impossible to deny that it’s in the digital space that Nintendo has been found particularly wanting this generation. It’s conceivable that the platform holder would be willing to give up a slice of its revenue in order to quickly get its offering in line with rivals.