Ubisoft CEO: “Nintendo has to perform this year, otherwise they will have less games”

[Zod95]

padib said:

Thanks for understanding. That is what I mean. About them making an exclusive, I never said that's what they should do. I only said that if it did happen I would shut my mouth immediately.

...

I understand. Nintendo built their market on their console much like 3rd parties have built their mutual market on Sony and MS' consoles. It's nobody's fault, but the onus is on Ubi to start building their market to make it their and Nintendo's game. The sooner they start, the sooner they succeed on a Nintendo console (if they want to of course).

1 - Then I presume you mean that, unless Ubisoft Montreal makes an exclusive for WiiU, Ubisoft has no right to criticize the system. I disagree. I believe things can (and should) start by baby steps (like it happened with the Wii as Ubisoft launched initially low-budget party, fitness and dance games) and then, only if successful, the publisher should increase the attention to the console, placing more and more resources on it. To create an AAA exclusive is the ultimate stage and very few large companies do such these days without a technological reason or a very strong motive. And the few who do most probably regret it. Last generation I remember Bioshock, Mass Effect, Tekken, Final Fantasy, Metal Gear, among others, going multiplatform. This generation, Insomniac, Platinum Games and Respawn Entertainment must be regreting their choice of making exclusives for XOne and WiiU, as the PS4 is leading the market.

2 - It's not just about building a market on a console. The console itself has to be fertile ground to sell 3rd party software. More than a market built on PS3 and X360, Ubisoft had a friendly environment there, powerful machines (at their time) and a userbase very receptive to AAA titles. The same scenario was drawn to PS4 and XOne, so there was almost no risk on developing for those new platforms (although there was no market yet). The WiiU is different as it hasn't regarded 3rd parties. It was poorly designed for AAA games and wrongly priced for casual titles. Some things just can't be changed now (it's already too late) but others can. Nintendo must focus on the latter and this message from Ubisoft should serve as motivation, once it means they haven't given up on WiiU yet.