Riccitiello has faith in Harmonix and the music game genre

EA's John Riccitiello is of the belief the music genre is going to recover from its current market lag, but at the same time, the CEO doesn't "know exactly how" it's going to happen.

Speaking with Kotaku, Riccitiello mused that the recovery for the genre could come about due to a new innovation or the possibility of it all becoming "dance-based". Whatever happens, though, he has a lot of faith in Harmonix.

"When asked about it yesterday, what I said was Alex [Rigopulos, co-founder of the studio] is a great developer, Harmonix is one of the great developers of all time. They've got the leading dance product and maybe the leading game full stop on Kinect and the question was what investors might be thinking about it," he said.

"[I said] the nervous investor would be worried about the decline in the music sector feeling like a falling knife. The only part of that conversation that got reported was the 'falling knife' part. Given the run up to it, it's a little bit unfair condemnation of people I have a great deal of respect for.

"Harmonix is at least as responsible as any company on earth for the creation of a genre. There aren't that many times you can point to that level of innovation."

Riccitiello refused to comment on whether EA was considering purchasing Harmonix since being put up for sale by Viacom, but seems confident the studio would find a buyer, whether it be EA or another publisher.

Analysts have said in the past the decline in sales for the music genre had more to do with the large installed base for music peripherals and less to do with over saturation and flailing game sales.