Sony's Harrison: You Can't Get Wii's Whole Audience

At the "Lunch with the Luminaries" luncheon at GDC this year, Sony's president of worldwide studios Phil Harrison told EA Blueprint's Neil Young that making Wii games may not be as viable as third-party publishers think. Due to competition with Nintendo's unstoppable games, according to Harrison, who was speaking at the invite-only press lunch: "Your addressable market is only 40% of the installed base." Young countered that EA's recent successful Wii title Smarty Pants, which had its gestation in meetings at the last GDC less than a year ago with developers Planet Moon, was "very easy to build very quickly." The EA executive suggested that it was "...fundamentally much more fun... almost like Xbox Live Arcade [development] to some degree" - he feels that's where the Wii's strength lies.