EA put some risky bets on some new IPs like Mirror's Edge and Dead Space, it's entirely plausible that folks in a tough economy would rather not spend $60 on an unknown property and instead go back to what they know, like Gears of War 2 or whatever.

As for Rock Band, well, its top SKU is a $190 bundle of plastic instruments. Expensive and not at all necessary. Activision's competing bundle is also disappointing in sales. No doubt many a parent are writing "not this year" next to these on their children's wish list.

I doubt EA is in any long term trouble, though, they have been doing this a long time and have a stable crop of profitable franchises to fall back on.

Comparing traditional games to MMOs is not really fair. Blizzard doesn't really have to sell any additional copies of WOW to make money (although the Frozen Throne expansion sold extremely well). They just have to keep collecting the monthly fees, and once you've invested hundreds of hours into a character, it's gonna take a lot to make you stop.

As for EA, people have been complaining for years about the Madden games just retreading the same ground year after year. As far as I can tell, the only worthwhile game they have out besides Rock Band is Dead Space, which has gotten good reviews but I don't know anything about the sales figures.

EA is also facing something of a consumer backlash among the more typical gamer crowd for the restrictive DRM schemes they've been implementing.

EA is more like a gaming sweatshop whose bread and butter is retreads of the same franchises than a creative company. Their flagship game of Madden (insert year) is well made, but not really revolutionary. If you have last year's Madden, you really don't need this year's retread as there are no new gaming systems this holiday season to make room for major breakthroughs in game play or graphics.

The Wii is offering an interactive gaming experience which can be enjoyed by many nontraditional gamers and has yet to meet market saturation. MMOs like Blizzard's World of Warcraft offer immersive game play and constant innovations through patches and expansions to keep people playing. Any system that sells the latests in the Rock Band or Guitar Hero series will have a solid game due to group play and musical fantasy aspects.

EA needs to be innovative if they want to increase their sales.

The titles that have done well for EA this year are generally targeted towards older consumers - Deadspace and Left 4 Dead have done very well. The things that have caused them problems are things like Madden (which is a retread year after year), Need For Speed (also a boring retread franchise) and Mirror's Edge (a great idea that seems to have lost something in execution, plus the difficultly level is way to hide for my enjoyment)). Rockband 2 has also not performed well, largely I think because it was too soon. No one is really interested in a minor upgrade of the core game and instruments when there is great DLC coming out every week. Also, having the Harry Potter movie, and therefore the game, moved back to summer has cost them a fortune.

My husband and I finally broke down and got a Wii this year. Why? Wii Fit. We were never able to justify spending money on a video game console - we like games, but can play them on our computers. But the Wii is different. Of course, now that we have it we are spending more time on things other than Wii fit (my husband apparently is a closet golf junkie and wannabe race car driver). But Wii Fit is very hard to come by this year.

How many people are giving Mom or Grandma a Wii with Wii Fit this Christmas? Video game consoles were always about teenage boys, but now they've opened up an entirely new market. And now I see that another console has cooking tutorials.

My husband has been a "Need for Speed" addict for years, but when we got our Wii he saw "Mario Kart" in the store and HAD to buy it. He has a ball, and I even enjoy watching him race (I'm not that into it myself). It's really fun to watch. There is something about watching your loved one fly off the road after being hit by a bomb that simply captures the imagination.

We had family over recently, and had a lot of fun setting up Mii's for everybody. The kids, of course, ended up with Mii's that looked nothing like them. Then we all bowled for a bit. I'm so used to thinking of video games as solitary escapism, not family entertainment. But playing with family on the Wii is a lot like "Pictionary". People get involved - in groups. It's fun.

EA has a formula of remaking a new version of the same thing every year or two. There's a limit to how long this remains fun, particularly as the technology curve is flattening out...it's not like the new versions today are a massive improvements over the 2006 edition.

On top of that, they have major internal problems. They are known as the worst place to work in the video game industry, so they're not exactly able to recruit top creative talent. Hence remakes.

Result - companies like Nintendo that can think outside the box and come up with something truly new and innovative will do better, while poorly managed companies like EA will do worse. It's Corporate Darwinism at its finest.

It just happens that A/B's franchises right now are hot stuff and more ridiculously lucrative than EA's. I mean, don't get me wrong, WoW and Guitar Hero (even though Neversoft/Activision have thoroughly butchered it) as games are far more compelling than Madden 'xx and Spore, but we're still talking about two huge corporations that make games for shareholders first, gamers second.

I have to point out, some of the EA games mentioned in the letters are not really EA games. Rock Band 2 (Harmonix) and Left 4 Dead (Valve) are merely distributed by EA. For instance, I doubt if much/any of the money from my weekly Rock Band DLC habit finds its way to EA.