EA Pandemic president: we won’t ‘shoehorn’ our games onto Wii

What did he say? EA Pandemic’s Josh Resnick said in an interview that they have equal love for all of consoles currently out, but they’re not about to add themselves to numerous third-party developers shoveling software for the Nintendo Wii. Pandemic’s head honcho also knew that the Wii is a unique platform and that developing a Pandemic-branded title best suited for Wii requires special – and serious – study. More at the full story.

A post-DICE 08 interview with Josh Resnick, president of Pandemic Studios, revealed that they’ve settled quite comfortably in superstar publisher Electronic Art’s arms.

The creators of Mercenaries haven’t changed their beliefs in game development after the acquisition, however. And Resnick says that one of those beliefs is that the Nintendo Wii is in a special class of console all by itself:

Nintendo is a unique platform. You’ve got to understand and embrace that day one, and you have to come up with a concept that works well with that platform and works well with the audience on that platform. Absolutely you have crossover players … but there’s just a difference and you have to recognize that difference.

This is why the top brass at Pandemic Studios believes that just shoveling any game from their known franchises toward the Wii – or Nintendo DS – just isn’t right. In fact, he specifically said:

We’re not just going to go shoehorn one of our existing franchises, regardless of whether it fits or not, onto the Wii. [There’s] no bigger mistake that you can make, and the same thing goes for the DS.

They are aiming, however, to get their games on every platform possible. Resnick claims that Pandemic is platform-agnostic, and every gamer from the PC to the DS should have a chance to experience what their franchises have to offer. “I think we’d be remiss if we weren’t bringing the trademark Pandemic experiences to all of those platforms,” he added.

When that’ll happen is still uncertain, but with the resources that Electronic Arts has under it’s wings and with the publisher’s reputation for going multiplatform, it’s likely to happen soon if not later.