At E3 2011 Nintendo’s relationship with EA looked strong after their president joined Iwata onstage at the conference to show the company’s support for Wii U.

But other than a few ports, EA’s support for the Wii U so far has been minimal.

So what happened?

Some information has reportedly been passed on from employees within EA, that suggests the relationship between EA and Nintendo went sour after Nintendo refused EA’s offer to run the Wii U’s online network through their Origin online service.

EA are said to have provided huge support to Nintendo in creating the Wii U’s online ecosystem, user accounts, social networks, and more. But then they got greedy, and proposed that the Wii U’s online network run entirely through EA’s Origin network.

This would have made the Nintendo Network for Wii U officially part of Origin, and run Origin’s interface and netcode, making it an Origin exclusive network.

This was a step too far for Nintendo who declined the offer based on unfair business concerns, and worries over the reliability of EA’s network, and thus destroying the relationship they had built with the company.

Now there is expected to be no support for Wii U from EA beyond a few budget ports of multiplatform games.

Source: Dual Pixels

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