EA Gets it Right, and MS is off the Mark

Pop quiz. Which market is expanding the most quickly? Asia and East Asia? or Europe? EA clearly sees the writing on the wall with the massive adoption of gaming in Asia and East Asia, but MS is still convinced that they've got to find all of the hard-core gamers hiding out in Europe. It should be interesting. What I'm curious about however is if as development in Asia and East Asia happens, what platforms will they be happening on, and how many "Asian" games are going to be getting developed, and by whom?

The thing is, Asia and East Asia may not be interested in playing EA's latest NFL or driving titles. Now, I know this is a gross understatement about EA's catalog, but I'll be curious about what they're developing for these markets. The second aspect is platforms. Web and mobile gaming are the big markets in Asia and East Asia. While console adoption is on the rise, cell phones and internet café's are clearly the dominant markets. I'm also curious about developers? Are there going to be development houses in these areas as well, or is EA going to try and develop these games with American/European developers? Certainly the number of studios in these areas with access to development hardware (DevKits) is not at the level it in in Europe and the United States.

MS on the other hand knows that they can readily develop games that will be consumed by European players, more than likely by first looking at the PC games already succeeding. While this is a reasonable aproach, it's going to leave them vulnerable in a year or two once they've exhausted themselves with an existing market rather than expanding into new ones.

EA Looks East // GamesIndustry.biz
Next-gen battle will be won or lost in Europe, says MS developer // GamesIndustry.biz