Electronic Arts will require an Origin account in order to play any of EA's games on the Nintendo's new Wii U. According to a report on IGN, The company recently updated its privacy policy about what authentication will be required from Wii U players.
IGN point to section V.3 of EA's privacy policy that is entitled "Information Provided To EA By Third Parties - Wii U." The section states, "If you sign up to play EA games through a Nintendo Wii U console, your Nintendo account information will be provided to EA so that we can establish an Origin Account for you. You need an Origin Account to play EA's titles online."
The section goes on to say that gamers signing up to play EA titles automatically agree to a limited amount of their account information being transferred to EA. According to the policy, "Information transferred to EA includes your Mii information, email address, Nintendo Network ID, friend list, country, language and date of birth but does not include credit card number or other financial account information."
The policy isn't exclusive o the Wii U and it isn't something new as the same policy is in place for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 gamers. And the policy has been in all of EA's games released on PC since 2011. Plus some of EA's mobile games like the Mass Effect 3 Datapad or The Simpsons: Tapped Out also uses Origin Accounts.
The Wii U from Nintendo will release on Nov. 18, in North America, Nov. 30 in Europe and Australia, and Dec. 8 in Japan. There will be two versions of the Wii U available a basic model for $299.99 that comes with 8GB of storage, and the $349.99 premium version that comes with 32GB of storage.
