Update: Rumor: Ubisoft Cancels Wii U Version of Watch_Dogs

[Alex Co]

Update: Rumor: Ubisoft Cancels Wii U Version of Watch_Dogs

GameStop Italy is apparently telling customers that the Wii U version of Watch_Dogs has been cancelled.

With Nintendo Italian video game site Wiitalia [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/131419-Nintendo-Makes-Major-Reductions-in-Wii-U-3DS-Sales-Projections], GameStop Italy is now telling customers that the Wii U version of Ubisoft's open world action game is no more and to move their pre-order to another game.

To add further veracity to the site's rumor, Wiitalia contacted a few GameStop stores and were told Watch_Dogs is not available for pre-order because it was cancelled by Ubisoft and was not available in the store's database.

Is this a case of GameStop Italy's database giving out erroneous info to people or is this a case of the retailer jumping the gun when it comes to the game's cancellation announcement? In any case, treat this one as a rumor for now and we've reached out to Ubisoft to ask for confirmation and will update the post once they've replied.

In other Nintendo news, an anonymous EA source has claimed Nintendo was "dead" [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/131584-UPDATE-Nintendo-Was-Dead-to-Us-After-Wii-U-Launch-Says-EA-Source] to them after the Wii U launch -- something EA COO Peter Moore has publicly denied.

Source: NeoGAF [http://www.wiitalia.it/2014/01/23/rumor-watch_dogs-e-stato-cancellato-per-wii-u/lang/en/]

Update: According to GameStop Italy and a source from Kotaku [http://kotaku.com/gamestop-is-canceling-watch-dogs-wii-u-pre-orders-this-1508273787], cancelled pre-orders for Watch_Dogs on the Wii U were a "glitch in the system," and that the title can now be pre-ordered once more. If so, this means all that doom 'n gloom talk regarding the Wii U is a bit premature, thankfully.

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[rapidoud]

I imagine EA may not even be able to justify the porting costs for games to the Wii U, especially when you consider that most of those Wii U sales are very likely to be people who would've bought it on other platforms.

 

[Shadow-Phoenix]

Oh hey another Nintendoomed article, not like we've had enough of those for a week and a half already.

Dtoid was like that last week so i'm going to assume the same here.

To be frank I hope WD fails just so it bites Ubisoft in the ass, they were once at Nintendo's side at the start and then out of nowhere left them out to dry.

 

[Caiphus]

Roses are red,
Violets are blue,
No third party games,
On the Wii U?

Questionably funny cynicism aside, poor Nintendo fans. These threads can't be fun.

 

[BrotherRool]

To be frank I hope WD fails just so it bites Ubisoft in the ass, they were once at Nintendo's side at the start and then out of nowhere left them out to dry.

And by out of nowhere you mean after they repeatedly lost millions trying to support the platform with games. I don't get why people are taking this so personally, it's not Ubisoft spiting the Wii U but you have to be insane to continually throw cash at a platform that almost guarantees it's going to be wasted.

They made what was lauded as one of the best launch titles for the platform and it couldn't even sell a million units. this isn't Ubisoft hating on the Wii U, this is the Wii U sucking.

And if Nintendo's response to the third-parties was to hate them for Nintendo's own failure, then next time when no-one even wants to try to help Nintendo's platform it's going to be completely justified

 

[Yopaz]

I am waiting for something official before I trust this completely, several GameStops in Italy isn't something I would determine as a very reliable source. If this is true then that's a shame, I was considering buying it on either PC or Wii U. I guess this might make that choice easy.

Yeah, these are some rough days for Nintendo and us fans. I'm not one to jump on the bandwagon on these doom articles, but there are simply so many of them that it's clear that Nintendo is going to have an upwards battle ahead of them.

 

[Casual Shinji]

Oh hey another Nintendoomed article, not like we've had enough of those for a week and a half already.

Well what are they supposed to do, not report it everytime the Wii-U suffers another major blow?

And if this is true, then that's one hell of a giant bloody gutshot to the system. It might as well pack up if it is.

 

[Andy Shandy]

Oh man, if this is true...Ubisoft was one of the few big names to regularly support the Wii U, it doesn't look great at all if even they are dropping support.

Hopefully this isn't true, because they could have done some neat Gamepad-exclusive stuff too.

 

[Saltyk]

Isn't this sort of thing exactly what happened with the Wii? It's third party support was pretty much nonexistent. We literally came to a point where someone said something was multiplatform and you automatically assumed they were talking PS3 and 360 only. Seems we're going that way with the Wii U.

And no matter how much the Nintendo Defense Force wants to claim otherwise, Nintendo needs third party support. The Wii managed success because it was new, unique and could be fun even to non gamers. Nintendo has failed in many ways with the Wii U. Not the least of which were naming and advertising. It's a bad sign when even a gamer like myself didn't know what the Wii U console looked like even a year after it's launch. I've never had that problem in the past.

Is Nintendo on it's last legs? No, I don't think so. But they seriously need to turn around the Wii U somehow (you can't rely on the 3DS exclusively). If things continue like this, they may have to look at some serious changes. And losing a rather high profile game like Watch Dogs, can't help, if this turns out to be true. The only thing worse than losing this would probably be losing X.

Of course, the Wii U seems like it could have really supported Watch Dogs easily since they were pushing the Smart Glass thing and the Wii U has that covered with the controller. Seems like they built the game with that in mind, actually.

 

[Something Amyss]

Well what are they supposed to do, not report it everytime the Wii-U suffers another major blow?

Well, they could wait until it was beyond "several Gamestops in Italy say so."

I don't think that's particularly unreasonable.

 

[josemlopes]

Oh hey another Nintendoomed article, not like we've had enough of those for a week and a half already.

Dtoid was like that last week so i'm going to assume the same here.

To be frank I hope WD fails just so it bites Ubisoft in the ass, they were once at Nintendo's side at the start and then out of nowhere left them out to dry.

They were basicly the only western third party publisher (that and Warner Brothers Games) that released anything worth while even on the Wii so you really cant complaint that they are leaving Nintendo out to dry, I am suprised they didnt left a lot earlier to be honest.

 

[MrBaskerville]

While it may be too late for Nintendo to become the viggest console in the new generation, they can still manage to become profitable. I'm still hoping that they can manahe to find their own niche between Sony and Ms. I don't want a wiiU to play shooters and on-rails narrative rollercoasters, i want condensed gameplay and niche titles, i hope it in some way could be possible to find an audience in that direction.

 

[InsanityRequiem]

That's interesting. I just went to the Wii U version of Watch_Dogs on the Italian Gamestop's site and it says you can pre-order still. http://www.gamestop.it/WiiU/Games/31775

So either was a glitch or a mistake from the Italian Gamestop people. Also, 70.98 Euros? That seems very expensive to me, and sheesh, just looked up the exchange rate? That's nearly $100 US.

 

[SonOfVoorhees]

Not sure. Can the WiiU handle it, especially after seeing what the 360 version looked like? Though the tablet pad the WiiU has would be perfect for this game.

 

[Aiddon_v1legacy]

or, y'know, it's the far less interesting but also more logical conclusion: just a temporary glitch in the system since most other retailers still have it up. Especially since cancelling the Wii U version would just be spitting in Nintendo's face on Ubisoft's account. Not exactly great from a political standpoint

 

[Lightknight]

I imagine EA may not even be able to justify the porting costs for games to the Wii U, especially when you consider that most of those Wii U sales are very likely to be people who would've bought it on other platforms.

This is Ubisoft. But perhaps you were talking about the quote at the bottom where an anonymous EA source said the WiiU was dead to them post launch?

However, this game was supposed to be VERY close to launch. How is it that they haven't already ported the engine over? It's true that x86 for the new consoles is a piece of cake but the ps3 and 360 are both uniquely different (360 being the obviously easy one). This would be a pure call on cost of porting if true. They may be mostly ported over but the amount of time and resources required to finish the job may not be considered worth their effort.

If this is true. If major developers are really pulling their titles this late in the cycle, then the WiiU is pulling a dreamcast. Thankfully, Nintendo is poised to try again unlike Sega who had two failure in a row, the Saturn being even worse.

That's interesting. I just went to the Wii U version of Watch_Dogs on the Italian Gamestop's site and it says you can pre-order still. http://www.gamestop.it/WiiU/Games/31775

So either was a glitch or a mistake from the Italian Gamestop people. Also, 70.98 Euros? That seems very expensive to me, and sheesh, just looked up the exchange rate? That's nearly $100 US.

The site may be behind. But that's a good link.

Even then I said it before and I will say it again, people do not seem to want 3rd party games on the wiiu.

Excellent point. The first non-Nintendo best seller on the WiiU is ZombieU (a Ubisoft title) which only sold around 630k. The next non-Nintendo title was a 300k Selling Sega game.

These are terrible failures. Ubisoft actually has 5 of the top 20 sellers on the WiiU and all except the first are well under 300k. Even their "Just Dance 2014" which absolutely killed in the versions released in the Wii. But not here. The top 5 selling games (all Nintendo) account for more than 50% of all the WiiU software sold to date. This is a year out. The PS4 by contrast is already half way there.

 

[kanetsb]

I would go one step further and said that the WiiU itself, is already cancelled as well.