Riccitiello: Motion control could take half of game market
EA is "relatively far down the path of understanding how the technology works," says CEO
EA's CEO John Riccitiello believes that half of all games on the market could be played using motion control technology.
Both Microsoft and Sony unveiled new motion tech at E3 last week, as Nintendo continues to refine its Wii offering with the imminent launch of the Wii Motion Plus.
"My guess is that where this ends up is: motion controllers end up with half the market. And the other half still ends up with a more traditional game controller," said Riccitiello, talking to Kotaku.
"The industry, up until the Wii was introduced, was [such] that all genres worked on all platforms in sort of equal balance. There wasn't much difference. My suspicion is that what we're going to find is that different platforms will work better or worse — will get marketed better or worse — for a particular enterprise," he added.
Riccitiello revealed that Electronic Arts has been working on motion control features for some time, although the company is cautious of applying it to all videogame franchises.
"We've been working on this kind of stuff before Microsoft had a commitment to this kind of stuff… we're relatively far down the path of understanding how the technology works."
He added: "I really don't know if you're going to want to play FIFA with a motion control device. First off, a 75-minute session would be frigging tiring, jumping all over the place. And frankly the traditional controller is pretty fun.
"I don't know where, for example, shooters end up, but the camera and/or infra-red reception doesn't give you the precision for a shooter that you get out of a traditional controller. While you can certainly look at Natal and say, yes I can have a gun and do this with it, I don't know that that's necessarily how I want to play."