It's not that the title wasn't aligned with the userbase (that's a myth), it's that the title was niche genre, had a completely uninspired name, was a little bit shy on quality and the userbase was tiny. The attach rate is well over 10%, which is outstanding, but there are so few systems out there. Games are so expensive now that it's impossible to make money on an exclusive game on a new system in the first year, unless you're possibly the top game.

If ZombiU had a title like "The Last of Us", it would have captured imaginations much better. It also needed more impressive visuals for a next-gen title, not just good visuals. It was also really strictly in the hardcore zombie survival genre, which is a tough sell for a lot of people, including me. I haven't bought it (yet), but if it was more like a zombi/survival/character-driven adventure like The Last of Us impresses me, then I would have bought it day 1.

Still, a half mil on the Wii U is nothing to sniff at. Expecting much more - even if the Wii U was selling much better - is a bit naive.

"It was, in fact, because of that game’s performance that Ubisoft decided to make Rayman Legends a multiplatform game."

That has to be a joke. The potential of a 2D platformer being judged on the performance of a survival horror? That just makes so much sense.

Sales are certainly not bad, but I agree that they had a too high budget for this type of game.

But we shouldn't forget that ZombiU was bundled since launch in Europe and later in the US. Surely some people wouldn't have bought it if it didn't came bundled and I guess Ubisoft is getting less money from an official bundle than if it was sold seperately.

You are giving to much faith in 3rd party publishers to actually think they didn't had high expectations.

OT: This is a problem with both Ubisoft and the Wii U sales. Giving that this is a new IP for a new console there was no way they thought this would have sold that well (especially giving the reviews). Heck even with the massive launch the Wii had, Red Steel has only managed to sold 650k units (according to VGC), so it's was huge mistake from Ubisoft to actually have faith in this game.

And the Wii U sales obviously didn't helped, although the launch of the system was good, and I think ZombiU was one of the highest selling games (just behind NSMBU and NintendoLand), in fact, iirc Ubisoft said they were happy with the sales, but I'm not sure. 

Edit: if this game seriously had big development cost (let's say $20 million), then there's something very very wrong with Ubisoft (and the video game industry for that matter).

This statement is to be expected, since EA's major beef with Nintendo is that Nintendo rejected EA taking over their entire online infrustructure.  I find it annoying when people say WiiU lacks online.  It's got eShop, free online matchmaking, netflix, browsing and Miiverse.  What more is needed?

So, they were only in it for the money? That's disgusting!

lol never seen that before and I was pretty sure that I watched Ubisoft's E3 show in 2011.
Or was it at Nintendo's ?

Not sure if it would've done better honestly. Probably worse.

ZombiU struck me as interesting, but it was overpowered by one nagging question: why would anybody play a survival simulator?

This is the kind of thing I would recommend for a cheap DLC arcade game or as a demo. A full MSRP game is just way too much production value and commands too high a price. Add in the tiny marketshare the Wii U could have at launch and ZombieU was just a mess of poor or baffling decisions. Whoever thought this was a good idea?

Traditional Zombies aren't even selling that well. Resident Evil has phased them out, TLOU's selling-point is storytelling (and they're not traditional zombies, anyway) and Dead Rising doesn't take itself seriously in the least.

best selling 3rd party exclusive and nowhere near profit ?
what the heck is ubisoft doing ? maybe no more free beer and hookers for the devs ...