Everyone has a line separating what constitutes good natured ribbing, and what's just mean, and it looks like the infamous Electronic Arts team crossed that line during April Fool's Day.
The official Twitter account for EA's Frostbite engine took to sending a bit of flack Nintendo's way with some tweets mocking the Wii U console's technical limitations. EA had previously stated that Frostbite was just too powerful for the system, hence the gag.
It wasn't long before the tweets were deleted, but not before thirteen1.com managed to sneak a peek and capture them for posterity:
* "Frostbite now runs on the #WiiU since it is the most powerful Gen4 platform, our renderer is now optimized for Mario and Zelda."
* "Frostbite will power #HalfLife3, coming out summer 2014! #WiiU exclusive."
* "Good news, we have finally fixed and optimized our ‘netcode’. Uses quantum entanglement for Zero Latency connections. Exclusively on #WiiU."
Shots fired.
Oddly, there was enough of a backlash against EA that it prompted COO Peter Moore to tweet a brief apology, which is mind-boggling to me. If the apology was directed at Nintendo, fine, I'm sure Moore has Reggie or Iwata's number to phone a quick "sorry," or send a delightful fruit basket.
I get it, there's a long line to board the EA hate train these days, and people will piss and moan about anything the company does just so they can ride along. But this...really?
Moore's public tweet was an apology not to Nintendo, but to this sniveling audience, pandering to the same audience that has no qualms about sending death threats to developers because of offhand remarks and deals they dislike.
"Our apologies to partners @NintendoAmerica & fan @FrostbiteEngine 's poor attempt at April Fools not condoned by EA : unacceptable/ stupid," Moore tweeted.
Moore shouldn't be apologizing because the "jokes" were mean spirited. If anything, he should be apologizing for the simple fact that they just weren't funny.
