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Forums - Nintendo Discussion - Is Ubisoft lying about ZombiU?

SnakeDrake on 14 July 2013
xJbownagex said:
I don't know, what Ubisoft said could be BS. I'm going to say it sold 400k in physical sales, 50k in digital.

Let's assume that about 1/2 of those people bought it for $60, the other half got it for discount at $30. That's roughly 18 Million in revenue. The game screams low budget. It has glitches up the ass, low quality textures, about 10 weapons in the whole game. It also isn't very long and has few cut scenes. Lets assume it had cost 10 million to make. With it costing 10 million to make, that's roughly a profit of 8 million. AND awhile back on twitter the creator or something said a prototype for the sequel was being created.

He must've gotten consent from the company to develop a sequel or something, meaning the game was profitable. The problem is, a few months later Ubisoft said at E3 they were dropping all support for the Wii U because of the install base. So what happened to this prototype? Is it still out there? Maybe they're waiting for the console to get a larger install base to finish making it?

All seems a bit fishy to me.

You really going to say that 



 

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chocoloco on 14 July 2013

Fuck yes, they are lying. EA and Ubisoft want Nintendo out of the gaming business and they will kill anyone or suck any dick to do so. Fuck them.



ListerOfSmeg on 14 July 2013

I think you have to consider time spent on killer freaks and reviews. Some reviews were bad but it seems gaming media may be to blame for how it is percieved. Its got a higher metacritic score than i thought it would given how it looked in the media. I really enjoyed it, not perfection but I did get immersed into it.



ListerOfSmeg on 14 July 2013

Lol. sorry but no. A publisher wouldnt bother if they only got $20 for every $60 game sold. They would get more like 45-50. because they are the ones fronting the money to make it possible. Lol that really is cute though.



Mythmaker1 on 14 July 2013
mii-gamer said:
i've been looking at the original article. It is very suspicious. If you read carefully, the author neither directly quotes Guillemont nor does he provide the source.

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2013-07-08-does-nintendo-stand-a-chance-this-holiday

all it says is this:

Yves Guillemot, Chairman and CEO of Ubisoft, is typically one of the biggest proponents of new systems, but betting big on the Wii U didn't work out well for the company. ZombiU, one of the most popular launch titles for the system with players, was not profitable, he says. Not even close. As such, he says, there are no plans (or even desire) for a sequel.

As you can see, it is not a direct quote from yves. Just a paragraph written by the author

I've been following Wii U news carefully because i run a blog. I cannot recount Yves saying this. There is evidence the writer is making bullshit and just assuming there won't be a sequel.

The developer of ZombiU has confirmed there are working on a prototypye in May, not too long ago. I checked my blog history and i found the article in the archives. Now tell me, if yves had no desire for a sequel then why make a protoype.

Something very sus. Very sus

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2013-05-14-ubisoft-working-hard-on-zombiu-sequel-prototype

Not suspicious in the least. It's called paraphrasing, and the fact that lines quoted from Yves that so far as I know have yet to be published elsewhere are present indicates that they conducted the interview themselves, and simply trimmed it down to accomodate a larger article.

Alternatively, if you truly think that this article, which has been reported literally everywhere this past week, contains  incorrect information regarding one of their IPs, where is Ubisoft's denial?

ListerOfSmeg said:
Lol. sorry but no. A publisher wouldnt bother if they only got $20 for every $60 game sold. They would get more like 45-50. because they are the ones fronting the money to make it possible. Lol that really is cute though.

$20 is about right. Welcome to retail.

-=-

As far as Ubisoft lying, the answer is almost certainly no.



I believe in honesty, civility, generosity, practicality, and impartiality.

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Seece on 14 July 2013
superchunk said:
I don't think they are lying.

That video had these points:

1) The 5 ports cost around $1.2m to make each. Which Ubi said was VERY low for a port and which ZombiU was not included in.
2) ZombiU was a different game at first, however, he incorrectly stated it was intended for PS360. It was ALWAYS a Wii U exclusive game even as Killer Freaks from Outer Space.

So this has always been a Wii U game built ground up on Wii U hardware. Hardware that was likely routinely changing and from all rumors known, it changed quite a bit as Nintendo went from all newer parts to focus on items that were essentially along the same architecture family as Wii so it could continue backwards compatibility.

If a true port like AC3 cost Ubi about $1.2m, then a ground up new game that definitely had a lot of R&D work along with actual game finalization due to it taking big changes in game direction... it had to have cost quite a bit more to make.

I'd wager heavily that ZombiU had a cost of $10m, give or take a small %. This would still be considered "lower" than the average HD game for PS360 which wikipedia has sources showing the average is $18m to $20m. So I don't think saying an exclusive game like ZombiU cost Ubi $10m+ to create is too far fetched.

Now, this is a game that Nintendo had a hand in an potentially paid a portion of it. However, we have no sources saying anything about Nintendo's investment in this game beyond the obvious of marketing and bundling with hardware where they likely paid Ubi for these copies of the game.

For the sake of argument let's take THIS IMAGE as fact since it seems pretty legit. That means Ubi would make $18 per full priced copy.

We know they sold over 500,000 to retail and some unknown amount digitally. But since some of those 500,000 are definitely not at the full price we'll make an assumption and say that only 500,000 total sold and they gave Ubi $18 each back.

$18 * 500,000 = $9,000,000 So that's $9m of GROSS REVENUE to Ubi.

But, that doesn't include packaging, shipping, non-developer salary costs, etc.

So yes, its VERY likely that Ubi, a company that doesn't have the history of attacking Nintendo like EA and others do, is telling 100% truth that ZombiU has NOT come close to breaking even yet, let along being profitable.

Now, this doesn't mean the game was a failure in its own right either. It does have a 14% attachment rate which is VERY high. Had WiiU sold 2m more consoles and thus reached their original goal, ZombiU should be around 800,000 units sold thus, making it profitable in the first 6mos on the market. As it is now, it will take two years or so to reach profitability on a console that will grow but will also have far more competition.

Granted, that's assuming word of mouth for the game as well as budget pricing and decent placement in eShop allows it to continue to sell a few hundred thousand more copies. Something not really heard of from any publishers that is not named Nintendo. Thus, its not likely to get a sequel.

Have Ubi stated 500k? I tried to find shipment information but found nothing. 



 

think-man on 14 July 2013

PS All stars was also considered low budget and has sold about 670k vita and Ps3 combined and I believe that wasn't profitable so I can believe them when they say ZombiU wasnt profitable either.



 

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oniyide on 14 July 2013

Dont think Ninty's biggest 3rd party supporter would be lying about this. The quality of the game doesnt matter, as Red Steel was received worst and did much better and was much cheaper to make. ZombiU was discounted for a while and it has virtually no legs, and was heavily bundled in Europe.



teigaga on 14 July 2013

Zombie U was not a big budget game but it had a huge marketing budget. By "no where near profitable", Ubi could simply mean 100k off breaking even.


think-man on 14 July 2013
ListerOfSmeg said:
Lol. sorry but no. A publisher wouldnt bother if they only got $20 for every $60 game sold. They would get more like 45-50. because they are the ones fronting the money to make it possible. Lol that really is cute though.


Nope, you are way off they get around $16 for each unit http://vgsales.wikia.com/wiki/Video_game_costs Lol that was really cute though.



 

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