EA urges Wii price drop

He’s at it again – seemingly miffed by being out of the headlines for the best part of 12 hours, EA boss John Riccitiello has openly encouraged Nintendo to slash yet more from the Wii’s RRP as he believes doing so will allow it to tap into the PS2’s still large userbase.

If you look at the research at what consumers are spending their time doing, the PS2 is still right up there in terms of time usage,” he stated during a talk at the UBS Global Media conference.

My belief is the first platform that gets to $149 is going to inherit much of that business. And Wii is best opportunity. They’ve got the lowest cost platform out there – if they drive price I think they can really do well.

Not finished there, Riccitiello added that if Wii does not get another price cut it might find itself in a tough position once Microsoft launches its Natal motion hardware next year.

$199 up against an Xbox 360 is a tougher compare especially in a world when Natal comes,” he observed.

The Wii is not gone. But if they maintain $199 and don’t innovate they’re going to have a hard time competing with what’s already been announced from Microsoft and Sony.”