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Forums - Nintendo Discussion - Ubisoft responds to Wii-owners upset with quality of titles

ClaudeLv250 on 31 May 2008
jman8 said:
ClaudeLv250 said:
 

How is it riskier to devote top teams on games of actual quality on the leading console that has lower development costs? Wouldn't it be riskier to flood the market with a multitude of shitty games? And pretending like they don't have enough resources? Are you mad? They could just take the manpower behind all 30 of those Petz/Babiez games and put out maybe one or two good Wii titles.

For a Wii game to bomb, it would have to sell like no copies. Even the notorious Zack & Wiki and NMH, often cited by countless Sony fanboys for not selling a bajillion copies, made all kinds of profit in spite of the fanboys.


I explained this in a couple of other posts. It basically boils down to the fact that the PS3 and 360 combined own a greater percentage of the market. In addition, of the two populations (Wii vs PS360) the PS360 population has a greater percentage of hardcore gamers who buy a ton of games. In other words, software sales for hardcore games are heavily skewed toward the PS360.

PS3 and 360 are rival consoles and where one dominates the other suffers (except for Japan where both are dead). People seem to forget this when they mold them into some hideous single organism. Yes, they are selling to a lot of the same people, which is exactly why you can get into sticky situations where one version of a game flourishes and the other bombs completely.

The percentage argument doesn't actually make sense because Wii/Ps3/360 is 100% of the market. Several developers have done this and I'm willing to bet a few more major developers will make a couple of all platform games in the near future.  The simple fact of the matter is that arguments like risk and percentage are bullshit because Ubisoft's comtempt for the Wii isn't logical in the least. If anything they're just excuses.

They took a risk on Red Steel, a launch FPS and new IP. It got lukewarm reviews but guess what? It sold a crapton and Ubi made a pretty penny. They haven't done anything similar since then.

Rayman Raving Rabbids was supposed to be the next Rayman plaformer and the Wii was the lead platform, then it got butchered until only the mini games were left. How do you explain that? They already started the friggin game, spent the money, devoted the (competent) developers and resources, then decided that this was somehow wrong.

Both products left much to be desired but strangely enough, it only went downhill from there. Far Cry Vengeance was often cited as one of the Wii's worst before Sony fanboys became allergic to "casual" games and decided that Carnival Games was ruining their lives. Prince of Persia: Rival Swords...honestly what was the point? It's a port of a PSP game with motion controls tacked on, which is in turn a port of a PS2/GC/Xbox game that the Wii could already play through backwards compatability. There were no risks and percentages influencing this. There was no logic either.

Nitrobike seemed like the one shining game in the dark trend of Catz and Dogz. Then it came out and got slammed. Then it was ported to PS2 immediately (literally), showing that Ubi never had any faith in their own product.

The only good thing they've done recently is publish No More Heroes in America, and they even botched that by not advertising it. If they hadn't published it, someone else would have.

Really, Ubi's problem is that they don't know how to make good Wii games. It's not about how making good Wii games is supposedly risky, or how there is a made up percentage of people with "hardcore!!11!" stamped on their forehead on the PS360 compared to the Wii (hint: you have no numbers so what yousay isn't true), the problem is that the games they do decide to make are crappy, and a flood of Petz and Babiez titles only tells people that Ubisoft hs no interest in making something worthwhile to play.



Tag - "No trolling on my watch!"

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Kasz216 on 31 May 2008
LordTheNightKnight said:
Kasz216 said:
jman8 said:
Kasz216 said:
jman8 said:
 

I dunno, I look at that and see a lot of ports of old games, pretty mediocre casual titles, huge franchises or spin offs of huge franchises. I see nothing there that indicates an obscure title like Beyond Good and Evil would do well on the Wii considering both Okami and No More Heroes weren't all that well received. Even a title like Prince of Persia doesn't seem like a sure bet considering that franchise is no where near as well known as Resident Evil or Sonic.


If by "not well received" you mean... almost as well recevied when the game was new (270,000 WW) and well better recevied by any game every made by said developer you'd have a point.

 

You'd also have a really stupid definition of "not well received."

Lord almighty, I never said Okami or No More Heroes failed. The point I was making is that there sales weren't stellar. Yeah, they made money. But when Ubi can throw out anything with the name of Tom Clancy and have it sell nearly a million copies on the PS3 and 360, why would they devote their developers to the Wii instead?

Yes, the Wii is the leading single console. But the fact of the matter is that it's not competing against any single console. When a developer chooses to make a game, they have to either choose to make it for the Wii OR the PS360 (and PC). The PS3 and 360 combined have the higher user base and the greatest percentage of hardcore gamers. Again, why would you develop for the Wii over the PS360?

 

Edit: I understand that developing for PS360 and the Wii aren't mutually exclusive. However, resources are limited. Therefore, it makes sense to devote the majority of whatever resources you have to the PS360.


Where has a Tomi Clancy game not sold a million or more copies on Wii?

Splinter Cell Double Agent was on the Wii, but it had almost no marketing, and was considered shoddy work anyway.

Or perhaps the Wii just magically made it work that way.


Huh.  I suppoes the fact that i've never seen or heard of that game desite visiting gameshops very frequently explains that.

jman8 on 31 May 2008
HappySqurriel said:
jman8 said:
ClaudeLv250 said:
 

How is it riskier to devote top teams on games of actual quality on the leading console that has lower development costs? Wouldn't it be riskier to flood the market with a multitude of shitty games? And pretending like they don't have enough resources? Are you mad? They could just take the manpower behind all 30 of those Petz/Babiez games and put out maybe one or two good Wii titles.

For a Wii game to bomb, it would have to sell like no copies. Even the notorious Zack & Wiki and NMH, often cited by countless Sony fanboys for not selling a bajillion copies, made all kinds of profit in spite of the fanboys.


I explained this in a couple of other posts. It basically boils down to the fact that the PS3 and 360 combined own a greater percentage of the market. In addition, of the two populations (Wii vs PS360) the PS360 population has a greater percentage of hardcore gamers who buy a ton of games. In other words, software sales for hardcore games are heavily skewed toward the PS360.

That is a statement which is neither true, nor can be demonstrated in any substantial way ... If you compare the number of titles sold related to the average number of months that a system has been owned you will see that the software sales are (roughly) the same across all platforms.

 


 If you give me some numbers, I'll believe you. I dunno how to find out how many games each console has ever sold, but if you go to a normal week in which there was no major game releases for any of the three systems, you'll see the PS360 selling software at a percentage greater than their hardware marketshare of 55%. For example, North America Week Ending April 5th: 

Wii: 1.1 million

PS360: 1.5 million

 And those Wii numbers include bundled games like Wii Sports and Wii Play. Take away those, and the Wii only sold 850,000 units of software. That's only 36% of the market.

The Worldwide numbers are similar, but it's too hard to keep track of what games are being bundled for what systems in what territory. Therefore it's too hard to subtract those bundled games.  



My Top 5:

Shadow of the Colossus, Metal Gear Solid 3, Shenmue, Skies of Arcadia, Chrono Trigger

My 2 nex-gen systems: PS3 and Wii

Prediction Aug '08: We see the PSP2 released fall '09. Graphically, it's basically the same as the current system. UMD drive ditched and replaced by 4-8gb on board flash memory. Other upgrades: 2nd analog nub, touchscreen, blutooth, motion sensor. Design: Flip-style or slider. Size: Think Iphone. Cost: $199. Will be profitable on day 1.

trestres on 31 May 2008
psrock said:
brawl4life said:
Gamerace said:
LordTheNightKnight said:
Gamerace said:
Okay, I'm going to go against the grain here but while they don't have all the answers, I do think Ubisoft is generally correct.

Let's face fact folks - Assasin's Creed would not have sold 1m on Wii. Not even close.



Let's face facts. You thinking it wouldn't isn't proof it wouldn't.

That is a bullshit statement, with no actual proof to back it up. Reducing the game for the Wii is not proof.


Granted - That's a bullshit statement - I can't back it up (bet you didn't expect that response). But here's my thinking. Most core gamers I know own both a Wii and HD system. Which system do you think they'd buy a game like AC on?

Wii ! For comparison if AC had good enough motion control (stab, twist, motions ect) I would definitely grab the wii version over HD or maybe even PC. This is gonna be a good test coming up when Star Wars Force Unleash comes out for all systems. Will more gamers grab the wii version for motion lightsaber controls or HD graphics ?

 


 

what will happen when both xbox and ps3 have motion control?

 The PS3 already has motion controls, my dear troll, so what's reallyyour point besides trolling?



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jman8 on 31 May 2008

@Claude: Okay, so Ubisoft sucks at making Wii games. Then why should they continue to throw money at the system when they're pretty darn good at making PS360 games? The point of all my posts were to show that it didn't make sense for the Ubisoft to devote much attention to the Wii at this point in time. You just helped me prove my point.



My Top 5:

Shadow of the Colossus, Metal Gear Solid 3, Shenmue, Skies of Arcadia, Chrono Trigger

My 2 nex-gen systems: PS3 and Wii

Prediction Aug '08: We see the PSP2 released fall '09. Graphically, it's basically the same as the current system. UMD drive ditched and replaced by 4-8gb on board flash memory. Other upgrades: 2nd analog nub, touchscreen, blutooth, motion sensor. Design: Flip-style or slider. Size: Think Iphone. Cost: $199. Will be profitable on day 1.

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brawl4life on 31 May 2008
trestres said:
psrock said:
brawl4life said:
Gamerace said:
LordTheNightKnight said:
Gamerace said:
Okay, I'm going to go against the grain here but while they don't have all the answers, I do think Ubisoft is generally correct.

Let's face fact folks - Assasin's Creed would not have sold 1m on Wii. Not even close.



Let's face facts. You thinking it wouldn't isn't proof it wouldn't.

That is a bullshit statement, with no actual proof to back it up. Reducing the game for the Wii is not proof.


Granted - That's a bullshit statement - I can't back it up (bet you didn't expect that response). But here's my thinking. Most core gamers I know own both a Wii and HD system. Which system do you think they'd buy a game like AC on?

Wii ! For comparison if AC had good enough motion control (stab, twist, motions ect) I would definitely grab the wii version over HD or maybe even PC. This is gonna be a good test coming up when Star Wars Force Unleash comes out for all systems. Will more gamers grab the wii version for motion lightsaber controls or HD graphics ?

 


 

what will happen when both xbox and ps3 have motion control?

The PS3 already has motion controls, my dear troll, so what's reallyyour point besides trolling?

lol calm down mr. I think he means the simple wiimote like controls microsoft and sony rumor to be in the making.  

 



psrock on 31 May 2008
trestres said:
psrock said:
brawl4life said:
Gamerace said:
LordTheNightKnight said:
Gamerace said:
Okay, I'm going to go against the grain here but while they don't have all the answers, I do think Ubisoft is generally correct.

Let's face fact folks - Assasin's Creed would not have sold 1m on Wii. Not even close.



Let's face facts. You thinking it wouldn't isn't proof it wouldn't.

That is a bullshit statement, with no actual proof to back it up. Reducing the game for the Wii is not proof.


Granted - That's a bullshit statement - I can't back it up (bet you didn't expect that response). But here's my thinking. Most core gamers I know own both a Wii and HD system. Which system do you think they'd buy a game like AC on?

Wii ! For comparison if AC had good enough motion control (stab, twist, motions ect) I would definitely grab the wii version over HD or maybe even PC. This is gonna be a good test coming up when Star Wars Force Unleash comes out for all systems. Will more gamers grab the wii version for motion lightsaber controls or HD graphics ?

 


 

what will happen when both xbox and ps3 have motion control?

 The PS3 already has motion controls, my dear troll, so what's reallyyour point besides trolling?


do you go around each thread and call everyone  you disagree with a troll? please tell me how i was trolling.



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11/20/09 04:25 makingmusic476 Warning Other (Your avatar is borderline NSFW. Please keep it for as long as possible.)
HappySqurriel on 31 May 2008
jman8 said:
HappySqurriel said:

That is a statement which is neither true, nor can be demonstrated in any substantial way ... If you compare the number of titles sold related to the average number of months that a system has been owned you will see that the software sales are (roughly) the same across all platforms.

 


 If you give me some numbers, I'll believe you. I dunno how to find out how many games each console has ever sold, but if you go to a normal week in which there was no major game releases for any of the three systems, you'll see the PS360 selling software at a percentage greater than their hardware marketshare of 55%. For example, North America Week Ending April 5th: 

Wii: 1.1 million

PS360: 1.5 million

 And those Wii numbers include bundled games like Wii Sports and Wii Play. Take away those, and the Wii only sold 850,000 units of software. That's only 36% of the market.

The Worldwide numbers are similar, but it's too hard to keep track of what games are being bundled for what systems in what territory. Therefore it's too hard to subtract those bundled games.  


Months of ownership in 2008 in North America (assuming 1/2 month ownership for console sold in a month):

XBox 360: 54592271.5
Wii: 49812343
PS3: 21379984

Units of software sold in 2008 in North America

XBox 360: 25897420
Wii: 26478072, 23402230 (without Wii Sports), 21631296 (Without Wii Sports and Wii Play)
PS3: 12554967

Software sold per month ownership:

XBox 360: 0.47
Wii: 0.53 / 0.47 (without Wii Sports) / 0.43 (Without Wii Sports and Wii Play)
PS3: 0.59

 

Now if you take Grand Theft Auto 4 out of the picture the XBox 360 ratio falls to 0.40 and the PS3 falls to 0.50. Certainly, there is a advantage towards the XBox 360/PS3 but that could easily be argued as a lack of quality third party titles for the Wii.



Gamerace on 31 May 2008
LordTheNightKnight said:
Gamerace said:
LordTheNightKnight said:
Gamerace said:
Okay, I'm going to go against the grain here but while they don't have all the answers, I do think Ubisoft is generally correct.

Let's face fact folks - Assasin's Creed would not have sold 1m on Wii. Not even close.



Let's face facts. You thinking it wouldn't isn't proof it wouldn't.

That is a bullshit statement, with no actual proof to back it up. Reducing the game for the Wii is not proof.


Granted - That's a bullshit statement - I can't back it up (bet you didn't expect that response). But here's my thinking. Most core gamers I know own both a Wii and HD system. Which system do you think they'd buy a game like AC on?


Depends on the situation.

If a gamer wanted to save a little money, then the Wii version.

If a gamer preffered motion controls, then the Wii version.

If a gamer preffered a gamepa, and that wasn't an option on the Wii version (RE4 Wii had it; Okami Wii didn't), then the HD version.

If a gamer wanted the larger scale AI, then the HD version.

If a gamer wanted achievements, then the 360 version.

The thing is that the game would not be lacking compared to the other versions, if done with as much care and effort as the other versions. 

 

But here's the rub.  If a gamer picks a 360 version over PS3 version, it's the same game, the same development cost.  If a lot of your Wii owners get the game for HD systems instead, it's not the same because the Wii needs to have an entirely different game version built. 

As I said, if the Wii could run a port of a 360 game like PS3 does, everyone would port games to Wii.  But to create an entire new version for the Wii and then have a large chuck of your market opt for the HD version doesn't make much sense.  Better to make an exclusive version for Wii that's totally different  (like PoP) or a different IP like Red Steel that's Wii only.

As for Forced Unleashed - I think that's an exception where the Wii version would be the preferred version to own for multi-console owners. Plus SW is a huge mainstream franchise, that's perfectly suited to mainstream Wii.

 



 

LordTheNightKnight on 31 May 2008
Gamerace said:
LordTheNightKnight said:
Gamerace said:
LordTheNightKnight said:
Gamerace said:
Okay, I'm going to go against the grain here but while they don't have all the answers, I do think Ubisoft is generally correct.

Let's face fact folks - Assasin's Creed would not have sold 1m on Wii. Not even close.



Let's face facts. You thinking it wouldn't isn't proof it wouldn't.

That is a bullshit statement, with no actual proof to back it up. Reducing the game for the Wii is not proof.


Granted - That's a bullshit statement - I can't back it up (bet you didn't expect that response). But here's my thinking. Most core gamers I know own both a Wii and HD system. Which system do you think they'd buy a game like AC on?


Depends on the situation.

If a gamer wanted to save a little money, then the Wii version.

If a gamer preffered motion controls, then the Wii version.

If a gamer preffered a gamepa, and that wasn't an option on the Wii version (RE4 Wii had it; Okami Wii didn't), then the HD version.

If a gamer wanted the larger scale AI, then the HD version.

If a gamer wanted achievements, then the 360 version.

The thing is that the game would not be lacking compared to the other versions, if done with as much care and effort as the other versions.

 

But here's the rub. If a gamer picks a 360 version over PS3 version, it's the same game, the same development cost. If a lot of your Wii owners get the game for HD systems instead, it's not the same because the Wii needs to have an entirely different game version built.

Why entirely different? Reduced graphics an AI don't mean entirely different.

As I said, if the Wii could run a port of a 360 game like PS3 does, everyone would port games to Wii. But to create an entire new version for the Wii and then have a large chuck of your market opt for the HD version doesn't make much sense. Better to make an exclusive version for Wii that's totally different (like PoP) or a different IP like Red Steel that's Wii only.

Why? Because it's not exactly the same, it might as well be different entirely?

As for Forced Unleashed - I think that's an exception where the Wii version would be the preferred version to own for multi-console owners. Plus SW is a huge mainstream franchise, that's perfectly suited to mainstream Wii.

 


That's another fallacy, only this time's it's an opinion of yours presented as fact.

Just because you think it's better to make a different game does not mean it is. 



A flashy-first game is awesome when it comes out. A great-first game is awesome forever.

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