As we all know by now, Ubisoft's name is currently mud in the minds of most Nintendo fans. This is understandable after Ubidays, and in light of some recent comments by Ubisoft executives and employees. But while updating the Nintendo E3 thread, I noticed something I hadn't anticipated: it's possible that Ubisoft is actually putting some effort into their Nintendo titles, as we'll see at E3.

Granted that My Weight Loss Coach and the Stop Smoking game are hardly what most of us think of when we hear "games", but they're both actually pretty intriguing concepts that can help a person in real life, which is why I think Reggie said Ubisoft "gets" the DS.

On the Wii front, they also seem to be doing more than I first suspected. Mind you, we'll have to see how Prince of Persia turns out, and Red Steel 2 (hopefully) won't show this year, but the Rabbids team actually seems to enjoy what they're doing, and even Dogz 2008 doesn't seem to be shovelware, as they've assigned the game to Ubisoft Montreal (a top-tier team who made Prince of Persia, Splinter Cell, Rainbow Six, and other Ubisoft money machines).

I don't think I'll personally be interested in Dogz, or Weight Loss, or the smoking game, but it's beginning to seem like Ubisoft hasn't completely neglected Nintendo just yet (although their PR machine is terrible). So what are your thoughts?

They're making Nintendo-quality casual games?

Hardly. Their new casual division is retarded, to put it mildly, and it's true that much of their Nintendo line-up is, in fact, shovelware. I'm simply saying that if you're willing to dig a bit, you'll find a few gems, which is not something I thought would happen when I looked them up.

Well, I've always said that I'm just waiting for them to clarify any changes to their apparenty strategy. I hope they do it at E3, but I'm not holding my breath (I value oxygen quite a lot).

You got one thing right at least - their PR team is terrible.

How doesn't dogz not seem to be shovelware? The game runs at like 5 fps in some times, and it looks like a ds game. Its just a bad rip of Nintendogs.

I've always just believed ubisoft games sucked after the 2nd prince of persia - really had nothing to do with casual games >.> imo it did have a little to do with the casual stuff but I am under the belief that they are getting assassin creed quality games.

I guess what I'm saying is ubisoft can make great looking games, they can hit a genre on the head, they can mimic other succesful genres very well: but they don't know how to make games, their fun seems skin deep I guess.

Oh, regarding your comment about Ubisoft Montreal - it's a huge studio, according to wiki it has 1800 employees. There must be tons of different teams there, with varying degrees of quality.

Bah! BURN! * throws torch *

True, it looks like crap now, and may end up being so in the end. My "faith" (if you can call it that) comes mostly from the fact that the developer is a quality one. And while NJ5 is correct that it's a massive studio, it's been belching out good games since 2002. Time will tell whether it sucks or not, but I think it may come out better than I first thought.

@NJ5: I thought it would eventually have that many, by 2012. Granted, it's still several hundred, and Dogz may get funnelled to a team made exclusively of the new guys, but comments by Ubisoft executives make me think that the series is too valuable to them to just throw away like that. I could be wrong about this, and everything else I wrote, but I think we should wait at least until E3 before we completely trash Ubisoft.

@routsounmanman: Ouch! Be careful, you can put an eye out with that thing!

You can't stand the idea that dogz will be a milion seller :p