Watch Dogs Wii U - Ubisoft reiterates that Watch Dogs is still coming to Wii U.

[fleischr]

czecherychestnut said:

fleischr said:

Carl2291 said:

Mr Khan said:

Because nobody was talking about AC4 on Wii U (i really didn't see too many people talking about AC4 at all). Watch Dogs has had a fair amount of hype across the board, including on the U.

AC as a franchise has never had much of a following on VGC. That said, you should never judge how well a title will sell based on how many people are talking about it.

 

Kind of old, but Ubisoft has been on the record as saying it costs less than 1.3 million to port games to the U.

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2012-07-23-ubisoft-says-wii-u-ports-costing-under-USD1-3-million

Yes, this article dates to when the U had only the 360 and PS3 to compete with. But Watch Dogs, CoD, AC, and Batman all have 360 and PS3 releases.

At 150k, selling for an average price of lets say $40 when you account for bargain bin sales in the later half of sales lifetime that's $6 million. More than likely lifts most 3rd party ports to profit.

Regarding Watch Dogs on Wii U. 25k preorders at $60 = $1.5 million -- probably just enough get a long ways into porting the game and begin adding new Wii U specific features. The preorder number has been requested and provided in other weekly preorder reports on VGC.

Wii U version of Watch Dogs will come, and will be successful for Ubisoft. But there's no denying Watch Dogs on all other platforms is a far more material concern.

*sigh* this has to be one of the most misrepresented quotes going around on this site. For one, that quote pertains to the 5 ports of existing games that ubi released in 2012, those being Assassin’s Creed III, Sports Connection, Marvel Avengers: Battle for Earth, Your Shape, Just Dance 4, and Rabbids Land. With the possible exception of Assassins creed III, none of those are huge games by any stretch, and therefore there €1m port cost is not indicative of normal port costs.

Secondly, a port is a game that's already finished elsewhere, and the process of porting involves copying the game assets across, recompiling and optimsing the game engine, qa and release. Most of the time and cost of a game is in the creation off all the game assets, the artwork, music, graphics. Poets are cheaper because they leverage already developed game assets.

Watch dogs Wii u isn't a port. It was developed concurrently with the other platforms, therefore the costs of developing the game assets is spread across all platforms including the Wii u. Therefore there is no way you can say it's approraching profitability on 25k preorders. 

Lastly, if a game sells for $40 , Ubisoft is lucky to get half that. Nintendo take a cut, the retailer takes a cut, packaging costs money. Ubi might see half that. same goes if the game sells for $60. 

It's largely built from the assets used the 360 and PS3 versions. You're basically spreading fixed costs of design and development to another platform. They're basically waiting to finish the 360 and PS3 versions to complete the port of the game. That's why there is a delay.

Fair point on additional costs. But even once you include additional costs, there's enough money on the table for Ubi to at least break even. Assuming they get a little less than half of the revenue -- that's about 2.5-3 million in gross revenue. And that's all only at 150k -- the total sales for such a game mature in the range between 200 - 400k.