1. Tell me more on how releasing the Wii U version earlier is going to affect the huge 360/PS3 install base.
2. how much money will they make out of the Wii U version in the 7 months before the release of the PS3/360 versions.
3. Tell me how much they will be spending to get the other versions out in Sept and whatever marketing behind it.
4. Tell me how much copies of 360/PS3 AND Wii U versions they will expect sell in September and the later months.
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I think that's a fair template to follow for discussion, I just added earlier in the first question
1/ is the crux of the issue and where personally I put the Microsoft no timed exclusive against them policy into play. There is another thing linked to that you haven't mentioned, the Nintendo goodwill and the Ubi Soft loss of face. Nintendo did promote this quite a bit ( only game I was able to play at wii booths here in Montreal) and Ubi Soft had clearly said it was an exclusive and that it was supposed to be released last Xmas (
http://www.joystiq.com/2012/08/15/rayman-legends-is-a-wii-u-exclusive/). I wonder if we are ever going to get a statement from Nintendo about this. We did get some reactions from Sony when they lost the FF XIII exclusivity but well Rayman is no FF and I seriously doubt either Microsoft or Sony has been active at all in the Rayman case, it really seems to be a unilateral Ubi Soft decision.
2/,3 and 4/ are linked. Obviously, someone at Ubi Soft think that 4 minus 3 is significantly higher than 2, if that turns out like that, then Ubi Soft made the right call. Thing is, we'll never know given we'll never know how 2 will have turned out. And I think that's also part of the Ubi soft rationale, originally they were very eager about the Wii U and quite possibly very optimistic about what 2 would be I imagine, then they were hit in the teeth by poor sales of their games on the Wii U and seem to have decided to cut their losses. They must have gotten scared by the poor performances of ZombiU and Ac 3 on the Wii U soreduced whatever their estimate of 2 was ( there's a thread here on neogaf talking about a dev saying that some other dev told him they released a game on the WII U expecting to sell millions and only sold tens of thousands, commenters in that thread seem to think AC 3 and Zombie U are strong contenders as for the identity of that game ). Rayman on wii u will most likely still remain an added value compared to the ps360 version due to its implementation of the wii u controller so all in all the Wii U owners are not losing anything other than having to be more patient. It's Ubi Soft only that stands either to win or lose from this business decision. I, and quite a few in this thread, wouldn t have made that same business decision but we do not have all the figures so it s difficult to really know what went on behind the scenes, we can only try and make guesses.