You keep saying this yet you've never provided any actual proof. The fact that Ubisoft is delaying Watch Dogs and Warner Bros is not bringing Arkham Knight showed that they're not satisfied with the peformance of their earlier titles. And AC4 hitting 400k by the end of the year is absolutely ridiculous. It's only selling 4k per week and dropping steadily. But let's say AC4 does manage to stay at that level of sales for the rest of the year. Do you think Ubisoft is happy about that, selling 4k copies at bargain bin prices? Comapred to the millions they sell on other consoles at full price? Where do you think their priorities are going to be Zero?

Lets go for it, zero.

Stipulations?

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.

As far as I'm concerned, if less people buy the game, that's okay. I'll get it, it'll come out when I have more money, and the lower playerbase will mean less people trying to hack me. It's a neat gameplay mechanic, but I feel like it'd get annoying after a while with too many players.

Hey Carl, could not find your other post so ill post here. Numbers wise just look at Ubisoft's last earnings report, it tells you everything you need to know about Wii U profitability (even in guesstimation).

Last Quarter (from October to December 31) Ubisoft had total sales of 520 million Euors (720 million dollars) the Wii U account for 2% of those total sales which comes to 10.4 Million Euros (14 Million dollars)

Including the previous catalog, the Wii U only had the new releases of Assassin's Creed 4 and Just Dance 2014.  So we know at a maximum the Wii U contributed 10.4 million Euros of profit if there were 0 expenses related to the Wii U versions of games (profit = Revenue (sales) - expenses)

But come on we cannot be that nieve...

Expenses:

Royalities:  Ubisoft has to pay Nintendo royalities for the published games...doesnt come free.

Shipping: Game companies sell to 3rd party representatives who then sell to retailers, these games did not move themselves...

Packaging: The cost to create boxes for the Wii U games were not free

The game itself:  Im sure the cost to make these games, even the Wii U versions were not 0.  The ending credits are full of people, these people did not work for just creative freedom.

Seems to be chipping away at that 10m total pretty quickly...

People who don't follow gaming aren't going to see the Wii U version on shelves and buy it for another console, and people who do follow gaming news are going to be furious and boycott the Wii U version. Just cancel it Ubisoft.

I'll give this guy the benefit of the doubt for now. If it turns out to be a good game on the Wii U, then Ubisoft will still have my money.

They must focus on the systems that are going to sell the most copies, but even so a delay more than a month or 2 is outrageous.

*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. 

That is the big point to consider, if they offer some extra stuff to differentiate it from the other versions it could help, but the mot important thing is that they have to announce NOW that those extra will come, so a few gamers actually wait for the Wii U version.