Electronic Arts and Apple: "A marriage made in heaven"
Speaking at 3GSM in Barcelona, EA's Javier Ferreira has described the "exciting" success of games on the iPod, revealing that the publisher will collaborate on future projects with Apple.
The collaboration of Electronic Arts and Apple on games for the iPod has been described as "a marriage made in heaven" by Javier Ferreira, vice president of publishing for EA Mobile.
The publisher has enjoyed success with titles such as Mahjong, Tetris and Mini Golf on the market-leading entertainment player, with future projects on the highly-anticipated iPhone expected to be announced shortly.
Speaking to GamesIndustry.biz at 3GSM in Barcelona, Ferreira said, "As the iPhone comes to the mobile space it's an exciting opportunity for us. It's a marriage made in heaven.
"For us, fundamentally, we love new platforms, we love new ways of playing and new ways growing the market."
Although Ferreira would not disclose specific sales figures for EA games sold through iTunes, he did reveal that the titles have been a success - and confirmed that the two companies are working together on new projects.
"I'm not going to comment on the sales figures, but it's been tremendously exciting," he said. "We always welcome innovation on platforms - and the iPod is a very interesting platform from a gaming perspective."
"It's great news for us, we've worked with them and we'll continue to work with them," he added.
With EA's Mitch Lasky recently revealing the company is in talks to develop games for the iPhone, the publisher clearly sees another opportunity to expand its gaming reach. And although titles deemed 'casual' are only currently available for the iPod, it won't be long until some of EA's key brands appear on Apple's hardware.
"The more devices that people can play on, the better. You'll see people play The Sims on the Xbox, the PC, their iPod and then the mobile phone," Ferreira said.
"We don't see these platforms as competing against each other, we see them ultimately expanding and augmenting the gaming category — and as the market leader in the gaming space, that's fantastic news for us."