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Forums - Nintendo Discussion - Ubisoft explains why it delayed Watch Dogs on Wii U

 

WiiU Version delayed ...

July 67 14.32%
 
August 29 6.20%
 
September 44 9.40%
 
October 17 3.63%
 
November 24 5.13%
 
December 6 1.28%
 
2015 21 4.49%
 
2016 10 2.14%
 
2090 249 53.21%
 
Total:467
mysteryman on 10 February 2014
czecherychestnut said:
superchunk said:
Soundwave said:
I don't see how this game was going to do well on the Wii U when established franchises like Assassin's Creed, Rayman, and Call of Duty sell like crap on the system.

This thread will probably get more page views than actual Wii U owners who'd be willing to put down $59.99 for this game even if it launched day and date with the other versions.

Rayman sold better on Wii U... just sayin' and the other games sold as expected based on their market and console userbase.

No one is saying it will sell the same as other platforms, but it will be profitable.

All Ubi did was redirect resources so they coudl spend less time on the other platforms fixing the primary issues. Once that is done a small team can implement the then known changes to WiiU code quicker and overall a lot less costly. Thus allowing other consoles to be the bread and butter, while WiiU remains profitable.

http://www.vgchartz.com/gamedb/?name=rayman+legends&publisher=&platform=&genre=&minSales=0&results=200

Would disagree with you, though it is the closest a Wii u has got to being the best seller, that doesn't avoid the fact that by making it multi plat they tripled its sales. Do you think it could have sold 0.9 million if it has stayed exclusive to the Wii u, despite zombieu doing only 600k which wasn't profitable for ubi?

It's quite possible that Legends could have made those sales on the Wii U alone if it was released in Feb last year as promised.

The Wii U was in its game drought, there would have been zero competition for Legends. Plus it was heavily advertised throughout the Wii U reveal to launch period.

Instead they released after the drought was over, many users had spent their allotted games money on something else in the meantime (or were now saving for Mario D World), some users boycotted the release due to Ubisoft's treatment of Wii U owners, and some users just no longer cared.



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mysteryman on 10 February 2014
Soundwave said:
Aerys said:
superchunk said:
Soundwave said:


It's not gonna sell like Zombi U. That game was pushed fairly heavily for the Wii U launch window and even bundled with the system for a while.

Take a good hard look at those Assassin's Creed IV sales and start counting down from there. 

I as mentioned... AC4 died accross the board. When from a 12m franchise to 7m. People largely disliked AC3 and sales of AC4 show that.

This is a new IP with a lot of hype... at least it had a lot. That will be revitalized by E3 when it is relaunched and Wii U has largely nothing else.

I think it will easily do 400k at a min and likely closer to 750k. This is assuming Wii U gets some boost from MK8 and other titles putting it well over 6m in total sales by then.

Your expectations are really too high.

They would be happy if the game can reach 100k on Wii U.

Nintendo fans here always grossly overestimate Nintendo sales, it's generally not based on logic. A lot of them were counting on a monstrous rise in Wii U sales with Mario 3D World and were swearing up and down that the 3DS would have a gigantic YoY rise because of Pokemon X/Y. 

It's generally best to take what they say and divide by 1/2 at minimum to get something more in line with what will actually happen. 

You do know what dividing by 1/2 does, right?



mysteryman on 10 February 2014
zippy said:
jlmurph2 said:
zippy said:
bonzobanana said:
Reminds me of psp, wii, ps2 versions of games. Often they would come out after the major releases and were poor compared to the versions on major formats. This looks much the same. If the Developer struggled to get good performance out of the wii u for assassins creed 3 and 4 its very unlikely Watchdogs is going to perform well on wii u. The reality is it will be a very weak version.

Surely the time has passed where people can keep pretending the wii u is powerful. Clearly its struggling against ps3 and 360 in performance terms. I keep reading how wii u is difficult to develop for when there is absolutely no evidence of that at all, in fact the reverse seems to be true. What we are seeing for major games is pretty much the same level of performance on wii u.

My bet is that they took resources off the Wii U version to get the PS360 versions up to scratch, do you remember those godawful leaked screen shots?? A dev has been on record saying the Wii U version looks and runs better than the PS360 versions, and it was actually developed next to its next gen counterparts. Surely it would have been developed with the PS360 versions if it was going to be on par or weaker.

ACIV Black Flag looks better on Wii U and noone cared, so why would they delay the Wii U version just because last gen looks last gen?

They have delayed the Wii U version because, getting the game ready to launch on a 160 million install base is more important than a better looking version launching on a 6 million install base. 

So does that mean the PS4 and Xbone versions will be getting delayed too?



Fifaguy360 on 10 February 2014

Do you think they're trying to dodge Titan Fall release window?



Ganoncrotch on 10 February 2014
Fifaguy360 said:
Do you think they're trying to dodge Titan Fall release window?


I would think one of Ubisofts main concerns right now is the announcement of the release date of the next gen/PC versions of GTA5, those are really going to put 2 big holes in the head of Watchdogs's overly delayed hype train, they've already let it be hit with delay after delay it is now going into the danger zone of that GTA launch.

Regarding this treatment of the Wii-u install base... horrible, like Fox and a few others have said this would definately put me off putting any money on a Ubisoft game on any system if they're just giving the middle finger to a system hungry for a great game. What do they think will happen with the Wii-U version? I mean... there isn't many households which don't have a ps3/xbox360, but they think people will wait months after those systems release to buy it for the Wii-U? This is definately going to be a canditate for being canned now and it's not the Wii-U users fault which is where Ubisoft are going to drop the blame.



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TK14 on 10 February 2014

The Wii U version will never end up releasing. In my opinion, anyway.



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burninmylight on 10 February 2014
FlamingWeazel said:
burninmylight said:
Aerys said:
Roma said:
oh man just when you think Ubi will be the better guy they screw it up


fuck it, I will never buy another Ubi game from now on! And don't come an tell me it is Nintendo fans fault that we don't buy third party crap!


Sorry but it's entirely nintendo fans fault ( + nintendo fault), those who dont buy the game and prefered to buy mario, just look at the sales of their exclusive new ip bundled at the launch, they invested a lot in this game, just for Wii U, so we cant blame them,  they tried but most of the Wii U gamers  ignored their  new innovative good game and prefered to buy an other mario instead.

 

We just cant blame them : http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=617136

So it's Nintendo's fault the consumers prefer a quality game like Mario over a third party game. OK then. Here that Nintendo? Stop making Mario games, then the consumers and the third parties will come.

This has zero to do with mario, you think all wii-u oners play mario for years and notihng else? It is all nintendos fault for making a system that is un-ttractive for developers to invest in, and ingoring what the industry is moving towards. Third parties software not selling is NOT a positive.

 

Nintendo are not the only people who makes good games as crazy as that sounds, most of the biggest games in the industry are third party multiplats.

It's like you didn't even bother to read the comment I quoted.



jonathanalis on 10 February 2014

damn
april would just cover the big drought between DKCTF and MK8.



mii-gamer on 10 February 2014
chapset said:
superchunk said:
Soundwave said:

I get the feeling honestly Ubi Soft really doesn't want to make a Wii U version, but since they already commited to it, they don't want to look bad to Nintendo because they sell a good number of Just Dance games on the platform (at least the original Wii anyway).

I don't think they really give two craps about getting an extra 30,000 in sales from a Wii U version though. That's the last thing on their mind. 

I love when people do zero research.

Wii U userbase is currently about 5.5m.

Here are the 10 games Ubisoft has released.

ZombiU has sold to over 10% of the userbase. That is excellent.

The next four titles have sold to about 5%... also very good.

The rest are from games taht overall are not very big sellers anywhere beyond AC4:BF... but that lost sales on all consoles compared to its previous iteration. (12m to 7m) Largely because most consider it a declining title... its dying off.

WD had a lot of hype. Should sell well across all consoles and will likely be in the ZombiU range of 8-10% sell through on WiiU. Definitely well above the 30k that you think games sell at for some reason.... even if the lowest two Ubi games actually sold more than that so far.

Didn't you just say 5 posts ago that ''% is pointless. You can only consider the actual cost to port and what that port brought in.'' what made you change your stance? is it because those % fit better your point? And probably none of the games you listed made money for Ubisoft on the wii U

Ubisoft estimates that it cost 1.2 million to port over to the wii U. Some estimate that the games only need to sell 50k to break even. Anyhting around 100k they will be making a profit.

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



DevilRising on 10 February 2014

This is honestly Rayman all over again. Which, yes, either released at it's original date or as a system exclusive period, would have sold better on Wii U (even though it's still sold solidly on Wii U).

If Ubisoft had managed to release Watch_Dogs in the March/April window between DK and MK8, the game would have had a pretty decent chance of selling decent numbers. Now? Assuming it comes out in 2014, or at all, it's safe to assume that they just might wait and make it a fall release, in which case, it'll no doubt be going up against Nintendo's heavy hitters, and won't sell as well. What I don't understand, is that if they have a completely separate studio doing the Wii U version, what is the need to delay it? Unless of course the game on ALL platforms (or certain other platforms) is having issues in development, and they need that studio to help finish the other versions.

Either way, I'm fairly confident that Nintendo's own first party release schedule, from MK8 in early May onward, is going to be fairly consistent and solid, with Yoshi, X, Bayonetta 2, Hyrule Warriors, Smash Bros., possibly SMT x FE, and hopefully even Zelda U. Plus inevitably at least 1-2 (minimum) other games we don't yet know about, PLUS Sega's new "Sonic Boom" game, etc. Meaning, if Ubisoft truly cared about Watch_Dogs selling the best it possibly could on Wii U, they would have made sure it came out in March or April this year. Their impeccable business sense strikes again.