Mad Catz, Nyko Eye Accessories Opportunities for Wii U, PS Vita

Nintendo’s announcement of Wii U accessory backward compatibility was “great news” for Mad Catz, CEO Darren Richardson told Consumer Electronics Daily. “The last thing you need is a whole new hardware transition” at this point, he said. Mad Catz has been fielding an extensive line of third-party Wii accessories including controllers, chargers, Balance Board covers and Wii Remote covers. All will be compatible with the new Nintendo console.

"We would do whatever” accessories for the Wii U that Mad Catz is permitted to by Nintendo, Richardson said. He said it was, however, “way too early to even think about” making a third-party version of the Wii U’s 6.2-inch touch-screen controller that acts as a second screen for the new console and functions much like a tablet. Nintendo didn’t say if it would permit third-party accessory makers to make lower-cost versions of the controller, or if it will sell the Wii U controller separately and whether the console can even support more than one of the touch-screen controllers. Demos at E3 only featured one Wii U controller, though Nintendo showed that the controller can be used along with multiple standard Wii Remotes for multiplayer games.

Mad Catz was also glad to see that Nintendo will release a new Zelda game, The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword, this holiday season, Richardson said. The title should provide a “fantastic boost” for the current Wii console, he said. “It would not have been ideal for anybody” if there was no big Wii game release this holiday season, before the Wii U’s 2012 launch, he said.

The accessory company, meanwhile, has “presented a full range” of PS Vita accessories for Sony to consider, Richardson said. Mad Catz plans to field a full PS Vita accessory line when the system launches later this year or 2012, he said. But specifics weren’t immediately available. Sony has only said the PS Vita will ship by year-end, not saying whether it will ship in only one major market first and then other markets next year. “New platforms are always good” for accessory makers, Richardson said, predicting the new system will especially appeal to fans of first-person shooters and racing games. The PS Vita’s two analog sticks will “add to gameplay,” he said. The current PSP features only one analog stick.

Richardson also called Sony’s coming PlayStation-branded 24-inch 3D display (CED June 8 p3) “perfection” for first-person shooters because it features technology that allows two people playing a game to see individual, unique full-screen images when competing against each other, avoiding the need to have a split-screen.

Accessories that Mad Catz bowed at E3 included a 7.1 Dolby wireless surround headset for the Xbox 360, featuring 5.8-GHz wireless technology and two swappable rechargeable battery packs, that Richardson said will ship this holiday season. Mad Catz will also field stereo wireless and stereo wired versions of the headset. Pricing wasn’t provided. All three will be co-branded under Mad Catz’s Tritton brand, as well as Xbox 360, the company said. It will be an “important product range for us this year,” Richardson said. Game audio “will be a key growth driver for our fiscal 2012,” and “we believe that our audio products could account for” 40-50 percent of Mad Catz sales “in the next 12-18 months,” he said.

Nyko was “really happy” about the Wii U’s backward compatibility because it, too, fields a wide range of Wii accessories that it won’t have to redesign, Marketing Associate Bernard Hoang said. “Our big discussion right now” is how much designing a third-party Wii U touch-screen controller would cost if it’s permitted by Nintendo to design one, he said.

Nyko didn’t announce specific PS Vita accessories either, but said it plans to support the system with a line of products. “Battery life is always a main concern with handhelds,” Hoang said, pointing to the line of chargers and other devices that Nyko fields that add battery life to portable game systems.

New accessories introduced by Nyko at E3 included the Zoom play range reduction lens for Kinect for Xbox 360. The $29.99 lens, shipping Aug. 16 in North America, clips onto the Kinect sensor and reduces the required playing area to use Kinect by about 40 percent, Hoang said. Players are now required to be 6-8 feet away from the sensor for it to work properly, which is difficult for some gamers with small rooms, he said. Nyko plans “a big marketing campaign behind” Zoom including magazine and online ads, he said. But, as usual, TV spots aren’t planned, he said.

Nyko will also ship a 3DS power grip at $29.99 in September and a Shock ‘N’ Rock battery, sound and feedback enhancement case for the 3DS that will cost $39.99 when it ships in September, Hoang said. Shock ‘N’ Rock adds four external speakers, two on top of the 3DS and two on the bottom, adds a rumble effect to games, and triples the system’s battery life, he said.

3DS sales have been slow after a strong launch, Hoang said. But he said Nyko was “hoping” the release of Mario and other strong franchises on the system later this year “picks up” sales for the 3DS.

E3 Notebook

While retailers, third-party companies, and analysts were mostly upbeat about the Wii U despite the lack of pricing and other key details at E3, there seemed to be a more mixed reaction to the new hardware that Sony Computer Entertainment bowed at the show last week. An executive at one third-party company we interviewed said the PS Vita would have been more impressive three years ago. Its 5-inch OLED multi-touch-screen is “not really as compelling as it was a couple of years back,” after the release of so many portable devices with touch screens that can play games, including the iPad, he said. A merchandising manager at one regional U.S. CE and videogame dealer told us at E3 that while Sony’s PlayStation-branded 3D display was compelling, the manufacturer was offering little room for retailers to make a profit off the product by including it as part of a $499 bundle with new Sony 3D glasses, a 6-foot HDMI cable and the coming 3D PS3 game Resistance 3.

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THQ has no plans to make a version of its uDraw GameTablet for the Wii U, Martin Good, executive vice president of its Kids, Family and Casual Games division, told us. There would be little reason for such a peripheral because gamers can draw directly on the touch-screen controller that Nintendo designed for its coming console. But Good said the new systems by Nintendo and Sony were “exciting.” THQ didn’t know about the Wii U’s controller when it developed the uDraw for the current Wii, he said. Nintendo “obviously kept their hand close to their chest” about the Wii U controller when THQ discussed the uDraw with Nintendo a while ago, he said. But he said that in terms of games, Nintendo’s Wii U tablet-like controller “plays right into our hands as a publisher.” THQ is “not a peripheral company -- we're a software company, and the world of uDraw is not a peripheral,” he said. “We don’t need to make the peripheral” for the Wii U and can instead focus on games for it that use the same sort of application, he said. “Our software” can all be “very easily” adapted to the Wii U, so “we don’t mind it,” he said. His game division “has plans” to release Wii U games and unspecified titles are already “in development” for it, he said. THQ is “capable” of having titles available for the console “at launch,” but “we believe that the appropriate window for that will be the first holiday” that the Wii U is available, he said. Pricing was still not available for the planned PS3 and Xbox 360 versions of the uDraw shipping in November, but Good said they will be “very affordable.” He called the coming PS Vita a “very interesting” device, and said his game division will “monitor” the platform. “We have got releases in our SKU plans -- in our long-term plans” that would be logical for that platform, he said. It was, meanwhile, “important” for THQ to see Nintendo’s strong game release plans for the 3DS at E3, he said. And while his division is already supporting iOS devices, it had yet to make games for Android devices. But Good said, “We will be pursuing the Android market.”

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Judobaby delayed the release of its first game, Jerry Rice & Nitus’ Dog Football (CED Jan 18 p8) from May 29 until Aug. 16, giving the company more time to complete development of the title for the Wii and PC, start a marketing campaign including viral initiatives, and get distribution at U.S. retail stores, Chief Strategy Officer Bill Gardner told us. In only about two months since joining the company, Gardner said he was able to launch iPad and Facebook applications, including smaller versions of the game, to help promote the coming release, he said. Also, “nobody wants to carry your game if you only have one game,” he said. So, Gardner tracked down some additional content that Judobaby could publish in the U.S., he said. Part of the company’s new Judo Buddy affiliates program is U.S.-based developer Human Nature Studios’ social and party game What’s Your Type? that Judobaby will release for the DS this holiday season, he said. Chinese developer Radiance, meanwhile, is working with Judobaby to bring three new PC games to the U.S. market: Beach Volleyball Online, the family racing game Go-Go Racers and Excalibur, a massively multiplayer online strategy role-playing game. Also being fielded by Judobaby is the Okashi Studios PC and Macintosh-based Japanese style role-playing game Shira Oka: Second Chances and, from Canada, Playful Entertainment’s party game Jungle Speed for the Wii. Judobaby will now start talking to retailers, Gardner said. Pricing for the coming games wasn’t available, but he said “I'm going to be right in the competitive sweet spot.” The goal is to be on the “low to competitive end” of pricing, he said.

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The cloud-based, on-demand OnLive game service will be available on five tablets, including the iPad, Motorola Xoom and HTC Flyer by year-end, Joe Bentley, OnLive vice president of engineering, told us. One of them will come first, by Aug. 1 -- “likely to be one of” the three he cited by name -- but it was too soon to say which, he said. Ubisoft added touch capabilities to its coming game From Dust to take advantage of the game on tablets, he said. Bentley predicted more games will take advantage of OnLive being available on tablets. The company, meanwhile, hasn’t “set final pricing” for the wireless universal controller announced just ahead of E3 (CED June 6 p7), he said. OnLive was in talks with an unspecified tablet manufacturer to offer the controller as part of a bundle with its new device, he said. It was also “in talks” for retail distribution of the controller, he said.

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Russian computer game developer Nival remains open to making games for the console systems despite its lack of success with dedicated videogame platforms in the past, President Sergey Orlovskiy told us. The videogames experiment “was very painful” because it invested a lot of money in them, he said. But he said “we're still considering” console games. The company is now “well funded,” and console games “would be potentially [an] upside for us,” he said. But if it makes console games it would be strictly for digital distribution on the PlayStation Network, Xbox Live Arcade or WiiWare, he said. The company’s focus is on cross-platform social strategy games, including its new Prime World for iOS and Android devices and King’s Bounty: Legions for Facebook, he said. He’s especially excited about the new tablets, which he said “allow” developers “to do great games without compromising” on features including graphical performance. While the growing strength of the game consoles in recent years has pushed away strategy games, he said the tablets are “100 percent perfect” for such titles. Action games, on the other hand, are “kind of crappy” on the tablets, he said. He predicted there will be a “huge renaissance of strategy games on tablets … next year.” That’s “what we're counting on,” he said.