Electronic Arts CEO John Riccitiello stands ready to defend his company's performance and priorities in an interview with VentureBeat's Dean Takahashi. Aside from getting all huffy over some tough investor-related related questions (e.g. "I don’t think the investors give a sh!t about our quality. They care about our earnings per share."), Riccitiello reiterates EA's commitment to all current generation platforms.

"There are three strong players in the sector. They have all got their respective demographics and geographies. Blu-ray on the PS trumps DVD on the Xbox 360. Xbox Live trumps the PlayStation Network. The wand controller trumps the traditional controller. They’ve all got their rock, paper, scissors competition going. The $249 Wii price trumps $349 Xbox 360 price. We are playing all three. We’re not trying to avoid your question. Nintendo is pretty happy with its market position."

However, Riccitiello does note that there is now a bigger window of opportunity to nab a meatier portion of marketshare on Nintendo platforms, traditionally dominated by Nintendo itself. Indeed, Lazard Capital Markets analyst Colin Sebastian muses that longtime Nintendo supporters EA and Ubisoft are the most committed to benefiting as third party Wii developers. This is especially true now that Nintendo remains mum over its first-party offerings, which are still under development.

On the Wii side of things, Riccitiello believes there will be merit to the recently announced MotionPlus peripheral for the Wiimote. Early impressions of the Wii MotionPlus-enhanced Wiimote already appear quite positive (at least with Wii Sports Resort), hailing the newfound control bestowed upon the once gesture-oriented gameplay mechanics.

"The Wii MotionPlus is going to be good. If I had to pick one thing we suffered from, it was imprecise control on the Wii. That meant certain genres were never going to perform as well on the Wii. There are a couple of franchises in our booth. Go look at Dead Space and imagine playing that game with a wand and a Nunchuk. If they improve the precision, then you could have a good experience. There is no doubt that Wii Speak will appeal to a certain group of people. I thought what was nice is that they created an opportunity for third parties to be more successful."

Electronic Arts CEO John Riccitiello