Ubisoft Won't Release A Finished Wii U Game Until Nintendo Sells More Consoles

[BlameTheWizards]

Ubisoft Won't Release A Finished Wii U Game Until Nintendo Sells More Consoles

"We have a game that has been done for six months. It's on the shelf, waiting for more families to have the console," Ubisoft's CEO told Polygon.

Hot on the heels of Ubisoft's E3 press conference, Polygon is reporting that the developer's CEO, Yves Guillemot, is holding off on releasing an unannounced, new title for the platform until Nintendo can start shoring up sales figures.

"We have a game that has been done for six months. It's on the shelf, waiting for more families to have the console," he told Polygon in an interview earlier this week. Guillemot did not say how many more consoles Nintendo would have to sell to get Ubisoft interested in releasing more games for the platform.


"We don't have a number," he said. "We need the sales to increase so it becomes more and more mass market then we will have the volume that will justify massive marketing and TV marketing."


He made sure to point out that the Wii U version of Watch Dogs is still on its way in November, and Just Dance will also continue to appear on the system as it is "well suited for the machine." While Ubisoft supported the Wii U early on with ZombiU, Guillemot seems disappointed with the franchise's performance, saying it likely won't appear on other consoles due to how tailored it was to Nintendo's system. "Maybe it will come to other platforms, but not as a full game. It was really developed for that type of machine," he said.

If anything can turn the tide for Nintendo's system, Guillemot believes it is the new Smash Bros.


"I think we have to wait for Smash Bros. to come," he said. "Smash Bros has always been a big, big property for Nintendo and for gamers. And we all know that there are lots of Nintendo fans that are waiting for big games to come. We know they are coming. We don't know if they will still be there. I think when I speak with the fans that come to E3 90 percent of them are crazy Nintendo fans. They really love Nintendo and the games they do."


Ubisoft just announced <a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/video-games/conferences/e32014/11610-Rainbow-Six-Siege-Debuts-With-Intensive-Competitive-Mutliplayer>Rainbow Six: Siege at its press conference earlier today, along with updates on <a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/video-games/conferences/e32014/11588-Assassins-Creed-Unity-Story-Details-Co-op-Announced-Update>co-op gameAssassin's Creed: Unity and <a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/video-games/conferences/e32014/11598-The-Division-Gameplay-Demands-Teamwork-Update-Story-Trailer>Tom Clancy's The Division, among others.

Source: <a href=http://www.polygon.com/2014/6/9/5793660/ubisoft-unreleased-wii-u-games>Polygon

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[Johnny Novgorod]

I'm not sure this is as outrageous as it may sound at first.

 

[Kmadden2004]

Ubisoft: We won't release a game on the WiiU until more people buy it.

People: We won't buy the WiiU until there are more games on it.

Repeat ad infinitum...

 

[synobal]

All this says to me is that they don't think their game is good enough to actually drive sales of a console.

 

[Azure Knight-Zeo]

Well if they can afford to shelf a project after dumping enough money into it to finish it, I'm guessing it wasn't going to be a well remembered classic.

 

[Zontar]

I'm not sure this is as outrageous as it may sound at first.

Current sales figures say different given Ubisoft's history.

All this says to me is that they don't think their game is good enough to actually drive sales of a console.

Well, we ARE talking about a company which wants to homogenize all their games into generic open world ones while also becoming a top tier (maybe even the top dog) game company instead of just being a big fish in the 2nd tier level. The suits are either delusional, or just waiting for their golden parachutes to open.

 

[Roxas1359]

I'm reminded of the position Capcom was in when it came to the GameCube back in the day. Capcom supported the GameCube back then with the infamous Capcom Five, and after taking huge financial hits they stopped really working on GameCube titles. Fast forward to now, and it seems UbiSoft feels they are in a similar position.

Now as for the finished game, stop being idiots and just release it then. It's obviously not gonna get you any money if it's just sitting on a shelf, so just release it since it's summer and the summer glut is gonna be kicking in soon. And if you're not confident about the game shifting consoles, then what's wrong with you UbiSoft. Hell, the 3rd Party titles tide us over until the first party ones come out, that's usually how it is, and leaving it on a shelf is just asinine.

 

[Objectable]

So, WHY THE HELL DID YOU MAKE THOSE GAMES if you AREN'T GOING TO RELEASE THEM!

 

[Baresark]

Sounds incredibly pompous to me. They have a finished game on the shelf and won't release it till there are more system sales. It's rare that a company is willing to support that level of stupidity. Why would you want any return on your investment at all, I guess is the logic they are using. I'm willing to bet it's not that good of a game, to be honest.

 

[Aiddon_v1legacy]

so basically your game sucks so bad that it won't sell a system. Seriously, do people at Ubisoft have paint chip eating parties or something? Because this is the dumbest thing I've heard at E3. More than likely this is going to flop and Ubi is going to throw a tantrum against Nintendo or consumers. Same crap EVERY time and 3rd parties STILL haven't learned. And yet these are the people we're supposed to think of as the cream of the crop for gaming. This is sad.

 

[mrm5561]

So, WHY THE HELL DID YOU MAKE THOSE GAMES if you AREN'T GOING TO RELEASE THEM!

if i had to guess to try and build hype around the game..... or they have their heads up their asses i honestly am not sure

 

[Shadow-Phoenix]

This has got to be the most childish response I have ever seen from any company, no seriously they truly believe that they are going to make more money by not putting it on the shelves, wasting out time,Nintendo's time to boot and as a nice little extra bonus "fuck you" present to us, they tell us Watch Dogs Wii U will come out in NOVEMBER, BLOODY NOVEMBER, are you fucking kidding me Ubisoft, are you that mentally challenged and dense?, do you think it going out for the console so long after it's already strained release is going to suddenly generate you mega bucks?, no it fucking isn't and you'll blame Nintendo for it like you always do when really you're just dicking both Nintendo and gamers over, you've already dicked over people that were expecting 2012 Watch Dogs, why stop there when you can burn more bridges along the way.

I swear sometimes the suits over at Ubisoft are the most retarded people I have ever known, they truly believe this stunt of theirs will somehow give them the exact answer they want when reality is going to tell them otherwise and they'll ride on it too and play it out in order to get away from bad press or backlash, because from what I'm seeing they are easily forgiven for that quite often, even after all the crap WD went through.

I want to say I'm excited for Far Cry 4 but really why should I when i'd be supporting this kind of behaviour, especially at how I'd be treated in the end for buying a Wii U and getting dick slapped by Ubisoft shortly after buying FC4 while expecting something good for an offer on the Wii U from their side.

But I know how this will play out, someone, somewhere on here is going to apologise for those mentally challenged suits and their PR spin and it will get spun so hard that anything will be in their defence.

 

[weirdee]

This is the best strategy ever. Let's just hold back Rayman, Watch Dogs, and all the other games, release them later when nobody wants them anymore, and then continue to complain about how poorly their sales are doing while an army of haters defends them with all of the explanations as to why Ubisoft is the hero/victim.

like, they just outright said that the game is done, and people are still claiming that the games take longer to develop

couldn't have your heads any further into the dirt than they are now

I mean, you can't both believe that releasing Rayman (which was supposed to be a launch title) later ON PURPOSE on the Wii U AFTER IT LAUNCHES ON THE OTHER CONSOLES was because they didn't think there would be enough sales on the Wii U, and then later say that doing that would have undercut sales on the other consoles. Those statements are mutually exclusive.

 

[oldtaku]

Man, entitled Wii U owners. Ubi is under no obligation to support the machine until Nintendo makes it a more attractive platform. They think it's not worth the certification, production, marketing, and distribution costs for that game and they're probably right. You should be happy that they're even bothering to release anything at all (Watch_Dogs, Just Dance).

It's not Ubi's job to sell the Wii U. It's Nintendo's. If they do their job then Ubi will most happily make and release games for it.

 

[mirage202]

I read this as:

"We have this piece of shit sitting around just waiting for the right moment that enough desperate suckers will rush out to buy it before word gets out about it"

That and as someone else said to build hype for said steaming pile, otherwise why bother saying anything at all.

 

[bluegate]

It does make sense from a business perspective.

Let's say that Ubisoft started development on this game one year ago, when Nintendo was still expecting to sell 9 million Wii-U's during the 2013 fiscal year. Ubisoft did some calculating; There will be around 13 million Wii-U's at the end of 2013, if we create a genre X game, we can expect to sell roughly 1.5 million copies given the large install base, which means we can afford to invest Y amount of money in creating this game and still make some money down the line.

Here comes 2014 and lo and behold, instead of selling 9 million Wii-U's Nintendo only managed to sell 2.7 million, throwing off Ubisofts earlier profit calculations.

Now, Ubisoft can shoot their load early, release the game now and hope that they manage to sell enough copies to break even, let alone make profit, or, they can wait a while and wait for the install base to grow and release the game then, with a higher chance of breaking even.

It's cold hard maths and business.

 

[Aiddon_v1legacy]

This has got to be the most childish response I have ever seen from any company, no seriously they truly believe that they are going to make more money by not putting it on the shelves, wasting out time,Nintendo's time to boot and as a nice little extra bonus "fuck you" present to us, they tell us Watch Dogs Wii U will come out in NOVEMBER, BLOODY NOVEMBER, are you fucking kidding me Ubisoft, are you that mentally challenged and dense?, do you think it going out for the console so long after it's already strained release is going to suddenly generate you mega bucks?, no it fucking isn't and you'll blame Nintendo for it like you always do when really you're just dicking both Nintendo and gamers over, you've already dicked over people that were expecting 2012 Watch Dogs, why stop there when you can burn more bridges along the way.

I swear sometimes the suits over at Ubisoft are the most retarded people I have ever known, they truly believe this stunt of theirs will somehow give them the exact answer they want when reality is going to tell them otherwise and they'll ride on it too and play it out in order to get away from bad press or backlash, because from what I'm seeing they are easily forgiven for that quite often, even after all the crap WD went through.

I want to say I'm excited for Far Cry 4 but really why should I when i'd be supporting this kind of behaviour, especially at how I'd be treated in the end for buying a Wii U and getting dick slapped by Ubisoft shortly after buying FC4 while expecting something good for an offer on the Wii U from their side.

But I know how this will play out, someone, somewhere on here is going to apologise for those mentally challenged suits and their PR spin and it will get spun so hard that anything will be in their defence.

Well, that's why I'm always baffled by the higher ups in gaming; they like to think they're these great businessmen with the ability to make billions for a company and expand their audience...and then they do shit like this which is what I would expect from an amateur making their first few decisions. And the thing is THESE are the guys in charge. This is downright clownshoes crap going on. I'm starting to think the reason Nintendo is having trouble with 3rd parties is because 3rd parties are too stupid to communicate with; like they're expected to negotiate with toads.

 

[Shoggoth2588]

Ubisoft: We won't release a game on the WiiU until more people buy it.

People: We won't buy the WiiU until there are more games on it.

Repeat ad infinitum...

Yep...The fact that they apparently have a game ready for the Wii U but won't release it doesn't really make me confident in whatever it is they're talking about.

 

[NuclearKangaroo]

wowowow, im really not a big fan of nintendo, and ill be the first one to call out their mistakes but

you have had a full, finished unreleased game for 6 months? jesus man just release it for the wiiu already, is ridiculous

 

[Strazdas]

well thats really news. so they have finished games on shelves but they havent released a finished game in a decade and instead keep releasing unfinished buggy messes? thats some sound strategy you got there ubisoft.